


Blessed Be The Norm

by insominia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Azazel's Special Children (Supernatural), BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), Bigotry & Prejudice, Canon-Typical Violence, Discrimination, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Protective Dean Winchester, Psychic Meg Masters, Psychic Sam Winchester, Requited Love, Secret Identity, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23667082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insominia/pseuds/insominia
Summary: After The Tribulation, those that remain are desperate to keep their homes free from the mere mention of monsters, mutants and deviants. As a city guard, Dean Winchester is one of the first lines of defence protecting the populace from the unnatural. But Dean’s life is one of secrets, from the demon-killing knife in his pocket to the fact that his own brother is psychic, a lesser-known kind of deviant. Then there’s his brother’s psychic friend, Meg, the illegal stash of coffee he’s hoarded and his suspiciously detailed knowledge of what goes bump in the night. His crush on his superior, Cas, isn’t ideal but compared to everything else is the least of his worries.In Cas, at least, he finds an unlikely ally and an even more unexpected one when Sam and Meg are exposed. The four of them must contend with demons, monsters and each other as they face life on the Fringes, struggling to make it from one day to the next, searching desperately for somewhere to make a home. But Cas has secrets of his own that could blow apart the fragile bonds that hold them all, to say nothing of the growing feelings between him and Dean.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 17
Kudos: 59
Collections: SPN Media Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S HERE!
> 
> Welcome to my offering for the Media Big Bang, where I have had, an absolutely FANTASTIC time working on this. 
> 
> Thank you mods for running an incredible bang and for being generally amazing people!
> 
> Thank you to my marvellous beta Quinn Quentin for all the time you put into polishing this off <3
> 
> A huge THANK YOU to my beautiful artist LeafZelindor! I have had the most wonderful time working with Leaf and their art is just unbelievably fantastic so please go and show some love on the master post which can be found here:  
> https://leafzelindor.tumblr.com/post/615922675802652672/ahhh-its-spn-media-bang-post-time-this-art
> 
> Thank you Leaf, thank you so so much for your amazing work, I could never have imagined my words brought to life in such a way. Thank you for all the fun chats we've had too and of course for spreading the obscure 1950s dystopian novel love! 
> 
> And of course, thank you for checking this out! The Media Big Bang has been such a wonderful experience, I hope you enjoy this and I hope you check out the others in the collection!

* * *

“ _And God created man in His own image. And God decreed that man should have one body, one head, two arms and two legs: that each arm should be jointed in two places and end in one hand: that each hand should have four fingers and one thumb: that each finger should bear a flat finger-nail_ …”  
\- Genesis 2:7

“ _And any creature that shall seem to be human, but is not formed thus is not human. It is neither man nor woman. It is a blasphemy against the true Image of God, and hateful in the sight of God._ ”

\- Nicholson’s _Repentances_

* * *

The table around which Sam and Dean Winchester sat eating the stew Dean had picked up from the stand outside the guard station, was small enough that when Sam started laughing unexpectedly, the mouthful of beef and whatever else he’d been chewing sprayed all over his brother. A beat too late Sam clapped his hand over his mouth. He might have been looking at Dean with something between embarrassment and apology but he was still laughing, though it quickly became a choking wheeze as he quickly tried to swallow what remained of the contents of his mouth.

Unsurprisingly, Dean glared at him, unimpressed. “Sam,” he sighed, his tone bordering on a warning.

“Sorry,” Sam coughed, “sorry, Meg said-”

“ _Sam_!” He was barely into his twenties, but at times like this, Dean seemed much older. Sam’s face fell and he wiped his mouth, timidly.

“Sorry Dean,” he said, quietly and Dean could see him making a concerted effort to say something to Meg without revealing that fact on his face. “Meg says sorry, too,” he added quietly after a moment.

Dean rose from the table and reached over to the counter, picking up a cloth to wipe the partially chewed soup from his face. “Sam,” he sighed again, hating the way his brother tensed at the tone. It was an old conversation, but it would not be the last time they rehashed it. “You gotta be more careful.”

“I know,” Sam mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

“You guys can’t go doing shit like that in public, it’s okay when it’s just me but...”

“I know,” Sam said again, “Dean, I do.”

Dean slipped the cloth onto the counter, not paying it any attention when it fell to the floor as he stepped forward to rest a hand reassuringly on his brother’s shoulder. “I know you do, kiddo, I’m just...I gotta take care of you, yeah?”

Sam patted Dean’s hand with his own, the closest the two would ever get to open affection, “Yeah...” Sam said, and that was all that needed to be spoken about it. For now at least. Dean sank back into his seat, returning to his dinner, but one eye on his brother who he knew was talking to Meg, but he was at least hiding it well. Until he winced. Dean raised an eyebrow so Sam gave a weak grin, “Clarence is laying into her for the same thing.”

“Good,” Dean grinned, “if it was just me looking out for you kids we’d all be dead.”

The old joke earned him an eye roll from Sam, Sam would be the first to argue the point. Without Dean, Sam wouldn’t have made it out of Sector Nineteen and even if he had he wouldn’t have survived the journey to the sector they currently called home. Sam started clearing up their bowls, “Clarence says he’s sorry about Meg, he’ll have words with her later,” he said, quietly.

Dean nodded, with a resigned kind of satisfaction. “Tell Meg to tell him I appreciate it.” He leaned back in the chair as Sam started on the dishes. It was weird to feel comforted by a guy he’d never met, a guy he knew barely anything about, only a name, ‘Clarence’ and the fact that he spent as much time looking out for Sam’s friend Meg as Dean did for Sam. Not that he knew much about Meg either, he’d impressed upon Sam the importance of sharing as little identifying information as possible and it seemed Clarence had said the same to her. 

Since Sam had been old enough to talk about the friends in his head, Dean had been trying to ensure that he didn’t. Not out loud anyway, not with anyone except Dean. The Bible and Repentances said nothing specifically about Sam’s particular kind of...mutation? Talent? Deformity? Gift? Whatever it was to be called, Dean knew that it wouldn’t be tolerated. His brother would be ‘purified’ with the rest of the Blasphemies if he was discovered. Sam knew this of course, but he didn’t _know_. Not really. Not enough to ignore Meg completely, but then Dean couldn’t grudge him that. It was a lonely life at the best of times and Meg seemed to be way more astute than any of the other ‘friends’ Sam had met in his mind. He could only imagine that that had been Clarence’s doing. The others hadn’t had anyone else, or at least, no one that they talked about. No one to tell them to keep it to themselves at all costs.

The fact that Meg had survived this long suggested Clarence had been at least as successful as Dean had been. 

For all that Dean insisted Sam keep himself to himself (but not so much that it looked suspicious), he practised what he preached. He wasn’t going to curtail Sam’s social life as much as he did only to accidentally betray them with a misspoken word to the wrong person. Dean didn’t mind all that much, but still...It was a lonely life trying to hide Sam from...well...everyone, not trusting anyone and keeping a bag in a drawer by the back door in case they had to drop everything and run, _again_. But, somehow, it felt a little less lonely knowing that there was someone out there in the same boat. 

He wondered if Clarence had ever had to scan a room, deciding what was expendable, disposable, grabbing only the essentials, pushing Meg out the door before the security forces showed up. He wondered how many times they’d had to cross the wilderness, coming up with a new story to get into a new sector, changing their names and blending in, at least until the next time. Dean wouldn’t wish this life on anyone, but he couldn’t help but feel a little comforted that it wasn’t just him.

“G’night, Dean,” Sam called, interrupting the train of his thoughts. He sighed, “Blessed be the Norm.”

Dean rolled his eyes, this was the worst part of the pretence, “Blessed be the Norm,” he muttered, through gritted teeth. At least Sam had learned to stop wincing whenever he heard it, there was something to say for exposure therapy at least. Dean really had to learn how to hide his disdain as well as Sam did, it should be easy given that it stared down at him from almost every building.

He wondered if Clarence hated saying it as much as he did.

* * *

Dean Winchester had learned a long time ago that the key to successfully hiding out and blending into normal society was routine. It might make them seem boring, but better to be unassuming and slip under the radar of most people than draw attention to themselves. His alarm went off as it did every morning, two hours before the mid-morning watch. He could stand to wake up a little earlier, Sam was always on his case too, but he liked the lie in and could justify it given that he worked into the evenings.

He stepped into the shower for three minutes exactly. Zone four was only allotted twelve minutes of hot water a day and as Sam had the longer hair, Dean had gotten his routine down to a quick scrub under the glorified hose. In the lounge, which was also the kitchen, dining room and Sam’s study, Sam had their lunches bagged up on the only table. He handed Dean a steaming cup of coffee substitute and Dean had become so accustomed to the taste he barely grimaced at all at its bitterness. While Dean chugged it down Sam checked his backpack and threw his lunch into it, ready to head off to the education centre. He turned to his brother on autopilot while Dean ran the now empty mug under the cold tap; at least because of Dean’s job they had unlimited cold water during daylight hours.

“You remember the rules?” Dean asked, as he asked every single morning and it was a testament to how worn the routine was that Sam nodded and said, ‘Yes, Dean,’ without a hint of argument, even though of course he knew, the rules hadn’t changed since yesterday, or the day before, or any of the seven hundred and forty-seven days since they came to this sector. “Don’t talk to strangers. Keep to the patrolled routes. Don’t mention Meg. Come straight home after classes-”

“Unless you’ve got a club,” Dean interjected, as he always did, he might be strict but he wasn’t a monster. Sammy needed a social life too.

“-and don’t talk about monsters, even if someone else starts the conversation.”

“And if you think you’ve seen Meg in person?”

“Don’t approach her, don’t risk it, deny everything even if she seems legit,” Sam said, dutifully and Dean ruffled his hair affectionately, it was part of the routine after all.

“You need anything, you come to the station, yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you later, Dean,” Sam called, already rushing out the door. For all Dean wanted them to keep themselves to themselves there was already a small group of students in the street waiting for Sam so they could all walk together. Sam was a popular kid and it made Dean smile, he wouldn’t begrudge him having friends, just as long as they were kept at an arm’s length. 

Dean himself made sure to keep himself on good terms with his work colleagues, even Gordon who was a bit of an asshole, but he hadn’t gotten as far as making what could be considered a ‘friend’. There was Benny, easily his favourite coworker and not just his favourite in this particular job. They got along so easily, impertinent enough that they could trust each other more than Dean would trust anyone else, but not so impertinent they risked punishment. Their easy and instant connection was one of the reasons Dean made sure they didn’t meet beyond work. The last thing he needed was to get comfortable and let something about Sam slip. He and Benny might trust each other enough to get away with rolling their eyes when they should have been reciting the Repentances, but it was hardly enough for Dean to say, _“So, I’m pretty sure my brother is a kind of Blasphemy that hasn’t been discovered yet.”_

And then there was Cas. Cas who was off-limits even by the standards of a society where, for Dean, every man was off-limits. In fact, the issue of his gender was the least of Dean’s problems. He was a captain of the watch, he was the captain of Dean’s watch. It was his job to find Offences and Blasphemies and make sure Dean didn’t slack in finding them either. He didn’t even like Dean, or at least, he liked Dean as much as he liked any of his subordinates; bordering on the friendlier side of professionalism but still distant. But when he looked as good as Cas did, with blue eyes so bright Dean was surprised they hadn’t been deemed illegal, a voice low enough to be a sin in its own right and his hair…Dean could forgive Cas a lot given the circumstances. 

Straightening up, he went to the window and watched until his brother, abnormally tall even for a teenager, had disappeared from view and he turned back to face their shack, almost defiantly. He had a little while before he needed to head for work and Sam had a paper due at the end of the week, all good reasons for Dean to get some chores in before he went out. Which is exactly what he told himself as he went back to his bedroom, threw himself on the bed and turned the radio up to an almost antisocial volume, definitely not thinking about Cas.

* * *

A crowd had gathered two streets from Dean’s shelter, at the exact midpoint between home and work. If he’d been a few minutes earlier he could have carried on past them, but even though he picked up his pace to avoid them, the magistrate’s summons for ‘ _all good adherents of the Norm to gather round_ ’ required him to join them. He was going to be late for work but it didn’t count if there was a Purification.

Dean forced his face to remain neutral as he fell in with the crowd. People deferred to his uniform, allowing him to stand closer to the raised platform that had been constructed especially for such things. He wished they wouldn’t, he really didn’t want to see this. He closed his eyes, trying not to let panic set in, it wouldn’t do for him to look nauseous. Besides, it might not be anything too bad...he didn’t believe in a God (which would be enough to land him on the platform himself) but he couldn’t help but mutter in his mind, praying to whatever it was that was out there, “ _Please don’t let it be a kid. Please, don’t let it be a kid._ ”

“Friends!” the magistrate called and Dean couldn’t help but wonder if these guys were picked just because their voices seemed unnaturally loud. Though given the circumstances, he probably wouldn’t appreciate being called unnatural in any sense. “We, the faithful, know what the Norm is!”

“The Norm is the Image of God,” Dean heard himself saying it before he realised he was speaking. He didn’t want to be here, but he could not leave and when the crowd’s blood was up, which it inevitably would be, if he wasn’t seen to participate not even his uniform would save him. 

“And we know what a Mutant is?”

“A thing accursed in the sight of God and man,” Dean said, along with the crowd. 

“We all know the Definition of Man-” he called. Dean stifled his groan. Surely, the guy wasn’t going to rattle off an entire section of the Bible. There were at least some small mercies; he didn’t. “If something fails to meet any part of the Definition, it is an imitation and in the imitations there is always a mistake. The Devil sends Deviations among us to weaken us and tempt us away from Purity-”

“ _Please don’t let it be a kid. Not again_.”

“- Sometimes he is clever enough to make a nearly-perfect imitation, so we have always to be on the look-out for the mistake he has made, however small!”

He gestured for a woman, dressed in what looked like sackcloth decorated with crosses, to step up and Dean braced himself. It might be anything from someone with an extra toe to a cat with no tail. Dean’s breath left him all at once when the woman stepped up with a box. A relatively small box, nowhere near big enough to seal a person in, not even a kid. 

The magistrate reached into the box, “ _Behold!_ ” he shouted, dramatically, revealing what looked like an ear of corn. Dean narrowed his eyes, trying to see what was wrong with it. It seemed alright, the right colour, not misshapen, but there must have been something. 

Beside him a woman screamed, “Keep pure the stock of the Lord!” and Dean had to bite his tongue before he said something he’d regret about the concept of personal space. Did she really have to be so loud? 

Others joined in, but Dean still failed to see what the issue was. 

“ _The Devil is the Father of Deviation_!”

“ _Blasphemy! Blasphemy_!” 

The magistrate nodded sagely, “Indeed, the harvest is not due for another week. This is an Offence sent to test us, to test our faith. But we have seen through it!”

The crowd cheered, congratulating themselves on their diligence while Dean struggled to keep himself from laughing. Just a moment ago he’d feared they were doing to bring out some undeserving soul to the pyre because their fingers were too long or something that would be ridiculous if it hadn’t cost someone their life. But corn? Ordinary looking corn being burned for yielding a week early. That was a new one. 

The woman took the corn back and started laying the ears from the box atop the pyre, as the magistrate dropped to his knees and the crowd followed suit. Even Dean. 

“Lord, we offer these Offences, cleansed in Holy fire, a temptation from The Devil…” he droned on as the crowd murmured their prayers under their breath. Dean kept his eyes shut and his lips moving. When the stench of blackened corn reached his nose he at least didn’t have to pretend to look disgusted.

* * *

“Blessed be the Norm, brother,” Benny greeted Dean, almost pointedly, as Dean clocked in for his shift. Dean arched an eyebrow, already completely done with the Norm for the day. He was about to make some wry comment about his choice of greeting when his fellow security guard caught his eye and gestured, discreetly, to the back of the office.

“Blessed be the Norm, Benny,” Dean said smoothly, catching sight of their captain’s dishevelled head bent over a desk. “Blessed be the Norm, Cas,” he called over, but the guy only waved his hand tiredly, mumbling something that was probably the appropriate response and Dean couldn’t help but smile fondly. Even that might have been a familiarity too far, he was the guy Dean always had to be on guard around, no pun intended. A stickler for the rules, he looked like he’d never laughed a day in his life, in short the complete opposite of Dean. But he was also kind of adorable in the way he was overworked and seemed constantly tired as a result, which was why Dean could chuckle that he hadn’t even graced them with the proper response in full this morning when he usually insisted on it.

In fact, given that he still hadn’t even looked up, Dean took pity on the guy and went to make them some coffee. The real stuff that Dean would never admit to keeping back for the days that Cas came by. Benny knew of course and gave Dean a knowing wink as he took his mug from him. “Here you go, Cas,” Dean said, quietly, putting the cup down beside the man who looked up initially annoyed at the interruption, but his tired eyes softened when he saw the offering.

“Thank you,” he breathed, practically inhaling the steaming contents. Dean glanced over Cas’ shoulder to see the pile of paperwork waiting for him. Cas followed his gaze and sighed, “they caught a werewolf in zone six, chased another one through zone seven too but it got away.”

“A werewolf?” Dean asked, managing to sound suitably irate, though his heart had started pounding in his chest. It always did when stuff like this happened, the proverbial noose felt as though it was tightening around him and Sam. Patrols would be up, Dean himself would be on high alert for the next week or so until it died down. Random testing would no doubt be implemented and even though there wasn’t a way to test for psychics yet it was still enough to spike his blood pressure.

Cas flicked through some of the papers, “they came in from sector nineteen about three weeks ago.” He paused, looking up at Dean for a moment, “you came in from sector nineteen didn’t you?”

Dean kept his face impassive, forcing his breathing to remain steady. He’d had a lot of practice. “Yeah, a few years ago now though.”

Cas’ face was unreadable as he studied Dean’s face for a moment longer than Dean was comfortable with before he finally turned back to his papers with another sigh, “they want us to up the security protocol to level six for the next week,” he said, loud enough that Benny could hear him too. Benny nodded, as did Dean, it was hardly surprising. “Benny you’re on patrol, Dean take the booth,” Cas said, and if he hadn’t sounded so utterly exhausted as he said it Dean would have protested, loudly. But, team player and all that plus it could only hurt him if he made waves so he downed the last of his coffee and started towards the booth, waving his hand in acknowledgement when Cas called after him, “we’re on a tier-three alert!” It was hard to hate the guy when he sounded like he had the weight of the whole sector on his shoulders.

Inside the booth, Gordon was spending a little too long checking a woman’s pass. Dean liked to get them through quickly and with as little fuss as possible. Gordon, on the other hand, liked to spend a little bit of extra time checking through documents he knew were totally fine, just to mess with their heads a little. Make the guilty ones anxious, then they’d be more likely to slip up later. Maybe it even worked on a couple of them, but his stoppage record was no higher than Dean’s or Benny’s. As soon as he realised Dean was behind him he seemed to drag it out even longer, but Dean stayed quiet and suppressed his eye roll. If Gordon wanted to waste his time even after his shift had finished, let him.

Eventually, the woman was let through and Gordon rose slowly, “Blessed be the Norm, Winchester.”

“Blessed be the Norm, enjoy the afternoon,” Dean said, cheerily, not wanting to talk to Gordon for any length of time longer than he had to. If nothing else the line of people wanting to pass through the checkpoint was long and those at the front were clearly impatient. Thankfully, Gordon didn’t hang around and Dean took a few moments to make sure he had everything he needed to hand. The government list had been updated, he noticed. The arm length limit had been reduced by a centimetre for whatever that was worth. Dean shrugged and buzzed the next person through, remembering just in time to smash the timer beside him to random, Cas had said they were on alert after all.

By the time Dean had gotten his first two applicants through the door, he had already switched to autopilot. Buzz person in – ask name and purpose of visit – check paperwork – compare photograph – check additional paperwork – follow up questions if required – stamp form – wave them through – buzz person in – ask name and purpose of visit… and so it went on until the timer beside him let out a bleep letting him know it was random test time. The woman at the window startled when the timer beeped and Dean sighed, “if you’d like to step into the side room here, ma’am, it’s just routine testing.”

“Seriously?” she snapped, pressing her hands against the glass that separated them “I’ve been trying to get in all-”

“It’s just routine testing, ma’am,” Dean said, again, why did they always have to argue?

“I’m just going in to see-”

“Ma’am!” he said, firmly and she stopped talking, “if you don’t submit to the testing you will be detained and tested at the detention centre.”

“Fine,” she huffed and stalked into the side room. Dean threw the switch in the booth that alerted everyone in the office behind him that a check was in progress and he stepped inside, ignoring the way the woman had her arms folded and tapped her shoe against the floor impatiently.

“If you’d like to hold out your arm, ma’am,” he said, trying not to sound as desperately bored as he was and when she did he went through the usual tests as quickly as possible. He looked over her quickly, her body seemed proportional, he didn’t need to get the tape out. Silver – no reaction, salt – no reaction, holy water – no reaction, and the last check, a quick stab to the fingertip to see if she bled red and they were done. Would have been quicker if she hadn’t argued, Dean thought, sending her back out and returning to her paperwork. All that and he ended up rejecting her pass anyway just for having the wrong date on the evidence letter. He was used to what came next, first came the excuses, then came the pleading, then came the bribery and in the end, she smacked the glass angrily as Dean just rolled his eyes and sent her back the way she came. Then, with a sigh, he buzzed the next person through, reset the timer and started the whole thing again. He might have groaned with boredom but keeping his head down and doing his job kept them under the radar and kept Sam safe.


	2. Chapter 2

The security forces never did catch the werewolf that disappeared and even though Dean didn’t work in that zone, had never ever been to that zone, somehow it still ended up being his problem. The Enforcement Department came down on the lieutenants, the lieutenants came down on the captains and Dean found himself on booth duty for a fortnight having to test every third person through the gate. At least Cas had appreciated what a shit show he was signing Dean up for when he apologetically gave out the duty rotations. He knew it was Dean’s least favourite job. It was _everyone’s_ least favourite job. It was alleviated somewhat by the constant supply of coffee brought to him from the office, but Dean knew they were doing that at Cas’ direction. They wouldn’t have bothered otherwise, well, Benny might have.

The guy trying to get through had such sloppy paperwork he could have written anything in the ‘reason for visit’ box and Dean wouldn’t have understood it. The door behind him opened while he was debating whether the guy was up to something suspicious or if his writing was just that bad. After a few minutes, feeling someone’s gaze on the back of his neck he decided to take the risk and waved the guy through.

He turned in his chair, surprised to see Cas behind him given that he still had half a cup of coffee relatively warm beside him. “Your brother is here,” the captain said before Dean could open his mouth with a witty greeting, “I’ll cover for you, he’s just through there, in the office.” In hindsight, Cas would have been well within his rights to tell Sam to wait until Dean’s shift had ended and Dean should have thanked him for offering to cover for him just so they could chat, but Sam would only come and find him if there was an emergency. Instead of thanking Cas, Dean’s mind was racing with the usual emergency questions. Was this it? Were they going to have to run? Had someone found out about Sam? How long did they have?

He tried to stay calm and look normal as he yielded his seat to Cas, left the booth and crossed the room towards Sam who was talking to Benny. He wasn’t hurt at least, there was no need to run to him. “What’re you doing here? You should be in school,” Dean said, affecting his most annoyed big brother voice for Benny’s sake. It worked, Benny gave Sam a sympathetic look as he slipped away to give them some privacy.

“Got sick,” Sam shrugged, but Dean only narrowed his eyes, he didn’t look sick. With Benny on the other side of the room Dean moved closer and Sam dropped his voice, “it’s okay, the nurse cleared it, they think I got sick after lunch...”

“But you’re not sick so what the hell are you doing here?”

“There’s someone else here, Dean. Someone...” he double-checked that Benny was out of earshot and lowered his voice to barely a whisper, “someone like me. Someone like Meg. Another...” he checked again, “another psychic.”

Dean’s hands moved of their own volition and he had to clasp them in front of his face to stop himself manhandling his brother, which would have surely attracted attention. “ _ What the hell is wrong with you? _ ” he hissed, “you can’t go saying shit like that out loud, not here.”

“But Dean, she’s scared, I can help her-”

“Dammit Sammy, we’ll talk about this later but in the meantime don’t you dare talk to her. You know anything about her,” he added, seeing that Sam was about to protest, “Go home, Sam.”

He hated that Sam looked so guilty. Sam wasn’t stupid, he wouldn’t have come to Dean’s place of work with something like this unless it was important. He wouldn’t jeopardise their safety for anything less than absolute urgency, but still, it was an unnecessary risk, even if it would have been unfair to have asked him to ignore this new development until Dean finished while acting normally at school. “Sorry Dean,” Sam said, quietly and Dean sighed, heavily, pulling his brother into a hug with one arm.

“Just go home, ok. We’ll figure this out later, yeah?”

Sam nodded and the fact that he was paler than Dean could remember didn’t hurt the pretence that he was sick. He gave a brief wave to Benny as he slipped out, leaving Dean to rub his hand over his face, feeling like he’d aged twenty years in half as many minutes. In his mind, he was already imagining the conversation he’d have to have with Sam, in the meantime, he’d no doubt be talking to Meg but Clarence would think it a bad idea too, right? He glanced at the display on the wall, there was still another three hours of his shift left and  _ crap _ , Cas was still covering for him in the booth. His coffee would be cold by now too.

Cas was stamping a woman’s pass when Dean stepped back into the booth, handing it to her with a, “have a nice day,” that belied how little he had to come in here to work. He seemed surprised when Dean returned, “is your brother alright?”

“Yeah, thanks for that, Cas, ‘appreciate it, he’s sick-”

“It’s okay,” Cas said, “do you need to go home?”

For a moment Dean was surprised by the kindness and forgot how to speak before he shook his head and said, “are you kidding? Kid’ll be fine, but...thanks though.” Still, Cas didn’t rise from the chair, “you uh...wanna gimme my chair back now, buddy?”

Cas glanced over his shoulder at the line formed against the opposite wall. He opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t seem to find the right words. “I...I think we should test that woman, fourth from the front.”

Dean shrugged, “Whatever you say, boss.”

Cas finally yielded the chair, “I’ll wait, I’ll test her with you.”

“I know how to do a random test, I’ve done a dozen today already.”

“I know but...” Cas looked back at the woman, then back at Dean, his eyes wider than Dean had seen before, “I think I should help...call it...a hunch?”

Dean threw his hands up, “you’re the boss,” and Cas seemed relieved that he didn’t need to argue the point, which was a little dumb in Dean’s opinion considering he  _ was _ in charge.

There were three people to test before the woman in question, but Dean found he didn’t switch off to wave them through. In fact, he seemed hyper-aware of everything his hands were doing. Not because Cas was watching him, Dean knew how to do his job, he wasn’t afraid of doing something wrong but because the booth was  _ so _ small, he couldn’t help but feel Cas right behind him. A solid mass of warmth against his back even though they were barely touching. 

It was... distracting.

Not least because the guy positively radiated heat. 

With every movement Dean made he felt himself brush against Cas and if he found himself moving more often than he needed to, well that was just to make sure he had everything in order. He breezed through them with his practised nonchalance, passing them through without any of the charm Cas had exuded, even though he was perfectly capable of it. He had, however, had the foresight to set the timer so when the woman in question arrived at the window, he could, with a clear conscience look down with a sigh at the machine as it beeped and roll his eyes apologetically as he pointed to the side door, If you’d like to step this way ma’am, you’ve been selected for random testing...” but the girl wasn’t even looking at Dean, instead she was gazing over him with an amused smirk at Cas behind him.

When Dean rose to follow them in, Cas turned and touched his shoulder, shaking his head, “I’ll take care of it. You carry on.”

If it had been anyone other than Cas, Dean would have suspected something. Even if it had been Benny. Hell, if it had been Gordon, Dean would have reported him on the spot. But, it was Cas and the guy had never bent a rule, exploited a loophole or anything like that so the idea that he was involved in anything remotely untoward was dismissed as soon as it formed in Dean’s head. It was far more likely that Cas had a baseless hunch and didn’t want to waste Dean’s time with it, so Dean let him go in alone and sat down to buzz the next person through, thinking it wouldn’t look particularly great if he left the queue of people to wait until Cas was done. In fact, his hand had just reached the necessary button that would alert the next person to come through, another second and he would have pressed it but he was interrupted by a large slam from the next room and given that there was no furniture in there, there really was only one thing it could have been. Dean was on his feet in an instant, a vague thought as he threw open the door that he knew Cas would never have been involved in anything suspicious. Or if he was, he was really bad at it. 

The door swung open to reveal Cas pinned to the wall at the neck, being held a good few inches off the floor, his hands scrambling at the hand at his throat for release. At the sound of the door banging off the wall, the woman glanced over her shoulder at the disturbance and Dean had just enough time to register the blackness of her eyes and what that meant before he made a move.

Demon.

Despite the nature of his job, it had been some time since Dean had had cause to fight something and demons weren’t exactly common. Not that anyone would have suspected, least of all the demon who approached him, dropping Cas to the ground in a crumpled heap and turning on Dean with an almost sadistic smirk. She hadn’t got within arm’s reach of him when Dean whipped out the vial of holy water he kept in his pocket just for this eventuality and caught the demon across the face with it.

She recoiled with something between a scream of pain and a yelp of surprise but Dean didn’t give her the chance to recover from it, advancing on her with a quick kick to the shins to throw her off balance.

“ _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis_ -” but the demon wasn’t trapped and once the burning of the holy water had faded she lashed out at Dean, tripping him to the ground with a heavy thud, interrupting the chant that might have exorcised her. Before he could even attempt to right himself, the demon flung herself across Dean, straddling him and not in a good way. Pinning him between her thighs she raised a fist and threw it, almost leisurely but with ridiculous force into Dean’s face. Pain exploded in his cheek as she connected a second punch and the coppery tang of blood filled his mouth. The third strike never landed as Cas threw himself roughly across her, spearing her around the waist, pulling her clean off Dean in a single movement.

Dean rolled away, spitting a mouthful of blood and possibly a tooth he noted with an inward groan, as he reached into his boot for the thing he knew he shouldn’t reveal.

“- _omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica_ -” Cas continued the chant where Dean had left off but the woman cut him off with an almost manic laugh.

“You think that’s going to work, pretty boy?” and she bucked her hips with enough force to throw Cas off, righting herself with indecent haste and going for his neck once more. Dean’s fingers curled around the knife and he pulled it from his boot, idly realising that at least Sam was at home so at least their getaway would be quick. The demon laughed, a shrill, grotesque sound when she saw the knife, no doubt assuming Dean was stupid enough to attack her with a normal weapon.

He wasn’t.

He caught her in the side, her face still frozen in laughter as what claim she had to life sparked out within her. Her grip around Cas’ throat loosened and he gasped down air, kicking the demon’s body away as it slumped to the ground.

“Cas?” Dean breathed, sliding across the floor to him. Cas lay on his side, his hand gently massaging at his neck which was already starting to bruise, coughing against the effort of breathing normally. “Cas, you ok?” 

He nodded, coughing again as though to clear his throat.

“You?” he asked, gesturing to the blood dribbling down Dean’s chin, but Dean only swiped it away and spat what had gathered in his mouth onto the demon.

“I’ve had worse.” His jaw was screaming and he could feel his cheek swelling even as he sat there. But, the two of them stayed where they were on the floor, getting their breath back, checking themselves over before Dean looked at the dead demon and groaned, “Some hunch you had there, Cas.”

They looked at each other for a moment before they started laughing, though it was short-lived when Cas dissolved into a rasping coughing fit again. Dean held onto his back, rubbing it in firm, heavy circles; he had no idea if it would help but it was the kind of thing people did. When Cas recovered his breath, he patted Dean’s hand away with choked thanks and turned his attention to the body.

They both saw it at the same time and they both froze. The knife that had killed the demon was still visible in her side, leaving no doubt as to what it was that had ended her. In his haste to make sure Cas was alright, Dean hadn’t retrieved it. A moment of stupidity that might have cost him everything.

“ _ Shit _ ,” he breathed, scrambling over to grab it, wiping it and hastily sheathing it inside his boot as though that could possibly help at this point.

“Dean?” Cas asked, carefully, “Is that...”

“I can explain, okay, Cas, I can,” Dean insisted, even though he couldn’t. The exorcism was unusual but he could have blagged that. This was...this was something else.

“You have a knife that can kill demons,” it was more an observation than a question, but still Dean could feel sweat starting to gather at his forehead as his eyes darted to the door, none of his escape plans had included being in the freaking interrogation room. There was only one way out and Benny would have him before he got out of the building, assuming he could even ditch Cas. Cas who was holding his hands up defensively, “It’s okay, Dean,” he said, soothingly, with only the slightest hint of an edge to his voice.

_ Shit, shit, shit. _ ’

There was no way to get a message to Sam, even if there was by the time it got there the security forces would be all over him before he could get away. They’d bring him in for questioning and-

“ _ Dean!” _ Cas snapped, harshly, bringing Dean out of his spiral, demanding he look at him. His hands were still up. He hadn’t moved to call for backup, he hadn’t moved to apprehend Dean, he was just...there. “Dean, I’m not going to tell anyone.”

Dean narrowed his eyes suspiciously. This was a trick.

“I’m not,” Cas insisted, but it was clear that Dean didn’t believe him in the slightest. Why would he? “Alright,” Cas sighed, “Look. I won’t tell anyone you have a knife that can kill demons...if you don’t tell anyone I have this,” his arm twitched a little and then, as though having fallen from his sleeve, there was a small blade in his hand.

“Is that...is that an angel blade?” Dean breathed, his eyes wide and his emotions in knots. Was he safe? Why did Cas have an angel blade? Cas couldn’t report him if he had something worse in his possession but that surely just meant they were both idiots and would share an execution block.

Cas nodded and held it out to Dean to examine. Dean stepped forward, tentatively, as though he were some wild animal approaching the promise of food with hesitation. But the blade was solid in his hands and Dean turned it over, admiring the craftsmanship.

“I’ve never seen one of these before,” Dean murmured, “I’d only ever heard of them. Saw a picture of one in a book once...how did you get this?”

“How did you get a knife that kills demons?” Cas asked, evenly and they exchanged a look.

“Hm,” Dean mumbled, as unwilling to implicate himself any further than Cas was. “So...what now?”

Holding his hand out to take his blade back, Cas glanced over at the dead demon. “You get back out there, I’ll...I’ll take care of this,” he waved his hand around the room, “Give me five minutes before you call it in.”

“Okay,” Dean said, struggling with this new reality in which his straight-laced Captain was offering to cover up the perfectly legitimate killing of a demon with a perfectly illegitimate weapon. He shook his head, unable to stifle his smirk. Cas arched an eyebrow at him and Dean just shrugged. “I never thought you’d be involved in...y’know...stuff like this.”

Far from being offended, Cas only smiled at him, “I could have said the same of you. We play our parts,” he added, grimly. “Go on. Five minutes.”

Dean went back into the booth, adjusted himself and took a breath before he pressed the button, calling the next person over. He didn’t offer an apology for keeping them waiting, he just took the paperwork and tried to focus on it even though his mind was reeling and the words on the page were swimming before his eyes. He was lucky it was one of the most straightforward visitation requests the sector was capable of offering, or he’d have never gotten through it. He waved the guy through and after taking another breath, pressed the alarm that would sound the alert in the office behind him.

Gordon rushed in, of course it was Gordon and Dean pointed to the side door. “Cap’ got a demon,” he said, surprised at how level his voice was as Gordon dove into the room where Cas was kneeling over the body as though he’d just killed it.

“Call this in, Gordon,” Cas said, glancing up, “Dean, holy water testing on everyone going in until we get new orders. Dean and Gordon both hesitated and Cas glared at them, “ _Now!_ ” he snapped and the two of them jumped to attention, Gordon disappearing into the office to notify their lieutenant and Dean buzzing the next person through, grabbing a vial of holy water from one of the drawers, ready to test anyone who came through.

Within minutes the booth had been closed anyway while the zone lieutenant and her guards secured the area, dowsing everyone who had been queueing for entrance to the zone with holy water before sending them back the way they came, threatening those who complained. Cas, Dean and Gordon were taken back into the station where the lieutenant, a no-nonsense woman by the name of Jody, took their statements.

“I was covering Dean for a few minutes in the booth,” Cas explained. “We’ve been doing random testing so I offered to do the next test seeing as I had a spare few moments. She reacted to salt and holy water and revealed herself to be a demon. We fought, briefly, before I successfully exorcised her but it seemed her vessel was already dead. I called Dean who called Gordon and they reported it to you.”

The lieutenant turned a frown towards Dean, “and you didn’t hear any of this?”

Before Dean could answer, Cas called over, “he did, but he arrived in time to see the end of it, he wasn’t involved in the fight.”

Dean couldn’t help but look over at Cas, quickly, his eyes wide. The consequences of lying on a report were bad enough, nevermind anything else they’d done, but this way if the real means of the demon’s death were discovered it would be Cas who took the heat for it, not Dean.

“That right, Winchester?” the lieutenant asked, clocking his surprise immediately.

Dean nodded, “Yes, ma’am.”

She narrowed her eyes, “So you can tell me what it looked like? To see a demon exorcised like that?”

It was a trick question, meant to catch him out in the lie. After all, what cause would Dean, a low-level grunt, have had to witness an exorcism? Their reports showed he had seen no such thing. But their reports were only a couple of years old. “It was weird,” Dean admitted, trying to sound surprised, “The Captain was saying these weird words and then the demon screamed and there was all this black...smoke?” he said, as though he were struggling to describe it, “I didn’t see what happened then it just...disappeared?”

The lieutenant held his gaze for a moment longer before she nodded, satisfied, missing the way that Cas was looking at Dean with undisguised admiration.

“You did good, boys,” she said, eventually, “We’re going to secure the area, you guys head home while we figure this mess out.”

They were dismissed but neither Cas or Dean moved, even after Gordon and Jody had left them. They exchanged a look and Dean briefly wondered if they were going to have a conversation. But, Cas just stepped past him, patting his arm reassuringly as he went. There was nothing left to do but to leave and trust that Cas wasn’t going to report him in the meantime. He stepped outside and started the short jaunt home.

Normally, he wouldn’t stop to second guess himself. He’d exposed himself and Sam, the only thing to do would be to run home, grab their go-bags and skip town. They’d spend some time in the Fringes, in the spaces between sectors, fighting the things that could only exist in such emptiness, the monsters that couldn’t find a home. But they’d survive, they always had and they would find a new sector and they would start their lives again.  _ Again _ .

But then...Cas had covered for him. If Cas was  to report him for having an illegal weapon in his possession then he could have already done it, he had hardly been short of opportunities. Instead, he’d shown him his own illegal weapon, which had evened the playing field somewhat. If Cas reported him, Dean could in return and vice versa. And then there was the way that Cas had lied to the lieutenant, outright made up a story that placed Dean well away from the demon.

When... _ If _ ...they discovered that the demon had not been exorcised but killed by a stab wound then it would be Cas they’d haul in. Not Dean…

The reason Sam and Dean had survived this long was because Dean didn’t trust anyone. He hadn’t allowed anyone to get close, he certainly hadn’t allowed anyone close enough to hold something criminal over them. But...Cas had given him no reason to distrust him and several reasons to believe him. And Sam liked it here, he liked his school, he liked his friends...he was doing well. He was happy.

Of course, the decision had already been made for them. It had been made for them when Cas had revealed the angel blade. If Dean was going to grab Sam and run, he would have done it already. All this was semantics, justification for the course of action he’d already committed to. He knew it was selfish and he knew he’d probably come to regret it, but no matter how much he might try and say it was for Sam’s sake, deep down he knew it was just because he didn’t want to give up their life of relative safety for the bloody knife-edge that was life on the outside.

* * *

“Dean? You’re home early.” Always waiting for the other shoe to drop, Sam was on his feet before the door had closed behind his brother. Any alteration to their schedules, anything unexpected was usually a recipe for disaster and Sam’s eyes darted between Dean and the cupboard where their go-bags were stashed.

“It’s alright, Sam,” Dean said, his voice belying his exhaustion and he slumped into his usual chair, appreciating how tired he was. He ached too, in several places he hadn’t had cause to ache in so long. He hadn’t gone hand to hand with a monster in a long time. His face felt like it was on fire, hurting from nothing more than existing. 

Sam hovered, waiting just beside Dean, waiting to see if something terrible was about to happen. But Dean only stretched out in the chair and groaned.

“We had a demon attack.”

“Oh my God, Dean, are you alright?”

Dean waved his brother off so he didn’t fuss, “I’m fine, Sam. It’s fine, we just gotta wait for the higher-ups to sweep the place and do their thing and we’ll have a few more weeks of tighter security. It’ll be okay. So...tell me about this new girl.”

That distracted him, as Dean knew it would and Sam was off, excitedly describing the new voice.

“Her name is Ava, she’s just come into zone four and she’s a psychic just like me. Meg and I heard her calling out-”

“You didn’t say anything did you?” Dean asked, quickly.

“No,” Sam sighed, “Meg said we should talk to you and Clarence first.”

“Glad to know one of you got some sense,” Dean mumbled. He’d have felt bad for the flicker of hurt that darted across Sam’s face, but his own face was hurting too much and he gestured for Sam to pass him a cloth. “What does Clarence say?”

“Nothing yet, he’s out. Meg’s not expecting him back for-” he broke off as he ran the cloth under the cold water. “Oh...he just got back. Meg’s gonna fill him in.”

“I think you should stay clear,” Dean said, resting the cloth over the worst of the bruises on his face. “You don’t know her, I don’t trust her, I don’t think it’s worth putting yourselves at risk.”

“But Dean,” Sam said, in his best little-brother-wheedling voice, “She’s all alone. Meg’s got Clarence, I’ve got you, she’s got no one. She’s scared, Dean and we can help her. We can help her feel like she’s not alone.”

Dean was not convinced.

“Meg turned out to be alright,” Sam pointed out and Dean rolled his eyes.

“Yeah but you couldn’t help but contact Meg, you were still learning how to control this whole...” Dean waved his hand around his head, “... _ thing _ and so was she. You know damn well if you’d have been able to keep your distance from her you would have had to.”

“I know, but...” Sam trailed off. He was perfectly capable of listening to Meg and carrying on a conversation in public, it was a trick they’d both learned, but at home, when it was only Dean, he didn’t bother with the pretence. He sat in his own chair, running his hand through his hair, and he sighed. “Clarence agrees with you, he thinks we’ll be running an unnecessary risk.”

Inwardly, Dean sighed with relief. He had been hoping Clarence wouldn’t argue the point, he didn’t fancy having to argue with Sam, Meg  _ and _ Clarence over it. Especially as such a thing would have meant going through both Sam and Meg first. Sam looked distraught.

“Hey, Sam, I’m not saying  _ never _ talk to her,” Dean said, softly, trying to appease him, “Just...take your time, yeah? We don’t know anything about her and I know she’s scared,” he said when he saw Sam about to interrupt, “and I know you want to help her and do your thing, but...we need to be careful.”

“I know,” Sam sighed, heavily, the weight of the world forcing his words out, “I know and...yeah...sorry, Dean.”

“Hey!” Dean crossed the room and almost hugged his brother, but caught himself at the last moment, settling instead to brace an arm across his shoulder, “Don’t apologise for having a heart, you’re a good kid, Sam. We just gotta be careful.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, “and thanks, Dean. I know I’m only here because of you-”

“Alright, no sappy shit,” Dean muttered, pulling away before Sam could actually hug him. He’d had enough stress for the day, a hug would probably finish him off. 

Sam drew back and smiled at Dean, fondly, but there was a hint of mischief behind it. “So...that Cas guy seems nice, he’s the one you’re always talking about, right?”

Dean balled the wet cloth and threw it at him, though Sam just about managed to evade it, laughing as it hit the floor with a dull thud. 

“Get out of here, Sam.” 


	3. Chapter 3

The day after the demon attack, and the day after that and indeed, for the week that followed it, Dean was on edge. Every time he stepped into the guard station he expected to find Benny or Gordon waiting to arrest him. Benny would at least be sorry for it. But nothing happened. Their security protocols were ramped up for a few days as they’d expected and Dean made a point of doing everything by the book. Not that he had ever slacked off particularly, he was too smart for that but now he was particularly vigilant, which was nothing less than the Commandments demanded.

It gave him a new appreciation for Cas and his position. He’d always thought that Cas had been too much a stickler for detail and toed the party line to the nth degree. Of course, now that Dean was doing it himself, he realised that it was the best way to deflect suspicion from oneself. Neither Dean or Cas ever spoke of that day. They had never enjoyed each other’s company outside of work before and both of them were too paranoid to attempt it. Though sometimes they would catch each other’s eye and there was a new understanding there.

They’d pulled it off. There was nothing to do now but keep their heads down, do their jobs and continue in mediocre obscurity. That was after all how Dean had kept Sam safe all these years. And it would have worked too. Ironically, when the shit hit the fan it had nothing to do whatsoever with Dean owning an illegal weapon or the demon he’d killed and lied about.

Everything about the day had been normal. Dean had gotten up, Sam had prepared their lunches and was getting ready for school. Dean had gone to work where Cas had told him to go on patrol. Of all the jobs, patrol was one of Dean’s favourites. It beat sitting in the booth checking paperwork at any rate. He could walk around in the open air and while it was pretty dull having to follow pre-arranged routes, there was fresh air in abundance and movement, as long as he kept his eyes peeled for anyone acting suspiciously. He hated the way everyone deferred to him, giving him a wide berth as he passed, occasionally nodding at him, a muttered greeting under their breath.

_ ‘Blessed is the Norm.’ _

_ ‘In Purity our Salvation.’ _

Dean gritted his teeth and gave them a small salute, a small recognition of their diligence before not sparing them a second thought. They annoyed him but he couldn’t blame them, head down after all. He followed the route and circled around back to the station, it was standard practice to check-in before starting a new route, but he hadn’t expected to find Benny and Gordon off their assigned tasks, gathered around a desk, watching Cas expectantly.

“Hey brother, was just about to call you,” Benny waved him over.

Dean looked between them all and Cas who was hunched over the radio, listening more than he was talking.

“What’s going on?” Dean asked, trying to ignore the panic that usually rose in him whenever he was faced with the unknown, naturally assuming that him and Sam were about to be dragged into the square for Purification. Fear like this surely couldn’t be healthy but it was a part of living, best just to accept it.

By way of reply Cas slipped the headphones off and turned to his team with a sigh, “We’ve got a code blue in zone four, I’ll need the three of you here, we’re just waiting on further instructions.”

Gordon let out a low whistle, while Benny looked up in surprise, “Zone four? That’s pretty close.”

Dean’s skin felt clammy, as though he were breaking into a cold sweat. Code blue was the discovery of a new type of monster, a new deviation to be hunted, something they’d not seen before.

Something like Sam.

Dean didn’t believe in a God, despite the mandatory daily prayers, but he still found himself thanking whatever force there was in the universe that Sam’s education centre wasn’t in zone four. Whatever they’d found, it wasn’t specifically Sam. Though the thought was only somewhat comforting.

The radio pinged on Cas’ desk and he went back to it, “Benny, if you could open the armoury please, you might as well get everything ready just in case...”

“Sure thing, boss.”

“Winchester,” Gordon muttered, nodding his head in the direction of the entryway. Dean looked over, his gut turning itself over when he saw one of Sam’s friends...Jess, was it? She gave him a shy wave and even though she didn’t look particularly worried, Dean knew something was wrong.

“Hey, you’re Sam’s brother, right?” the girl asked, cheerily, only the slightest hint of concern in her voice, when he came close to her.

“Is he okay?” Dean asked before he could stop himself.

She shrugged a little, “So, he had to take off from school, said he was getting sick, he asked me to come get you, he said he needed help. He told me to tell you...” she felt around for the word.

_ Not Poughkeepsie. Not Poughkeepsie… _

“Poughkeepsie,” she said, happy that she’d gotten it, “and that you’d know what it meant.”

Dean nodded, forcing himself to stay calm. He couldn’t lose his cool, he had to stay in control. Act normal. This was nothing he hadn’t done before.

“Thanks, Jess,” he said, warmly, patting her on the shoulder, “I appreciate it. I better get home and check on him.”

He didn’t stick around to hear her goodbye. He ducked back in and grabbed Benny, “Benny, I gotta go, tell the captain-”

“ _ Go? _ Dean we’re on alert you can’t go,” Benny said, not unkindly.

“Family emergency, Benny,” he snapped, “I gotta get back to Sam,” then he took a small breath, trying not to be too obvious about it. “Listen, I’m going home, and you know I wouldn’t bail if it weren’t serious. Tell Cas, if there’s a reprimand later or whatever, I’ll take it.”

It occurred to him that this would be the last time he saw Benny, but if he took the time to say goodbye, it would be even more suspicious than ducking out of work during an alert. He didn’t stop to hear Benny’s response, he was already running out the door and taking off at a sprint in the direction of home.

* * *

When Dean stumbled through the doorway, slamming the door shut behind him, Sam was already waiting for him, the bags which they kept hidden in case they were needed for a hasty getaway already out of the cupboard. Sam had slung his onto his back and he threw Dean’s to him as soon as the door had clicked shut.

“You remember the plan?” Dean barked, pulling the straps tight. “ _ Hey! _ You remember the plan?” he asked again when Sam only nodded, now was not the time for him to go quiet. If his brother hadn’t used their go word he would have thought Sam was actually ill. He was definitely paler than usual and for the moment he couldn’t quite look at Dean.

“Listen, Dean-” Sam started but Dean cut him off.

“Later, right now we gotta go.”

“No, Dean,” he insisted. “Dean...we have to get Meg first.”

Finally, Dean stopped. “What?”

“Dean I-” Sam broke off, taking a deep breath and whatever he was about to admit, Dean already knew he wouldn’t like it. “They called a code blue, yeah? New deviant?” Dean didn’t have to answer. “That’s Meg,” Sam sighed. “They found her.”

Dean sighed, scrubbing his hand over his face, “Okay, look, that’s a shame and all, but if we don’t move she could lead them right to you, now-”

“It’s my fault,” Sam snapped, “It’s my fault they caught her, Dean. You were right about...you were right about Ava.”

“Ava?” Gritting his teeth, Dean forced himself to pause, however much every instinct in his body was telling him to run. Sam looked devastated though and it was hard to be mad in the face of his brother’s obvious pain.

“She was a plant. Turns out the government was using her to find people like me...like Meg. And...”

“And you reached out to her, even though I told you not too.”

Sam nodded, but he didn’t wait for recriminations, there would be time enough for that once they were in the clear. “Meg didn’t want to either, but I convinced her and now...Dean, they’ve already taken her in and you know what happens next. They’ll execute her and it’ll be my fault. I can’t- I won’t leave without Meg.”

“Sam, if we go for Meg, they’ll kill us too.”

“I know,” Sam said, quietly, “But...Dean...This is my fault. I’d rather die with her than leave her to die on her own.”

For a moment Dean stared at him in utter disbelief. This was not where the conversation was supposed to have gone. Sam himself had gotten the bags out, they were supposed to be out the door and on their way to zone one right now, not arguing over what would surely be a suicide mission.

“Sam-”

“I mean it, Dean,” Sam said, sternly, not giving his brother the chance to dissuade him, “You go if you want. I’m...I’m going to zone four to get Meg. If Meg doesn’t go, I don’t go.”

There were several quiet minutes that felt like hours, in which Dean imagined all the ways this could go. He could knock his brother out and drag him into the Fringes. It would look suspicious, even by the standards of two guys trying to escape the sector, and the chances of them being caught would skyrocket but hey...it meant there was a chance they could get out. He could argue the point, but Sam’s mind was made up and it would only waste time trying to convince him otherwise. Of all the scenarios that flashed through Dean’s mind, there was of course only one that was viable. Sam would never forgive him if they left and he wouldn’t live with Meg’s execution on his conscience.

“Alright, Sam,” Dean said, with a resigned sigh, his gut-wrenching at how grateful Sam looked at him already. “Let’s go get Meg.”

* * *

In hindsight it was a good thing Dean hadn’t stopped to change once he’d gotten home. With the guards on high alert, his uniform was guaranteed to open doors. Anyone tasked with stopping him or checking him through assumed he’d been dispatched exactly as he said he had, no doubt the written confirmation would follow. After all, the higher-ups had more important things to worry about right now than committing their wishes to paper. Better to just tell everyone what to do and assume they would do it. That’s how Dean got them through the checkpoint between zones four and three with barely more than a hand gesture to say that he was going through. The guard waved him across without question, assuming, as everyone would have, that if he was heading elsewhere there would surely be a reason for it. The fact that Sam was with him apparently didn’t matter either.

“Where are we going?” Sam asked, under his breath, as they left the checkpoint but headed in a completely different direction to zone three’s guard station.

“Zone three has a detainment unit,” Dean mumbled, trying to remember how to get there. He’d only been there a handful of times and even then only for forgettable training exercises. “If Meg’s a code blue, they’ll put her there.”

“How will we get her out?”

Dean couldn’t help but snort at his brother who was willing to die in the attempt to rescue his friend, but had no idea at all as to how they would actually rescue her.

“ _W_ _ e _ aren’t doing shit. You’ll stay out here while I go in and get her. I’ll blag a transfer or something and then we’ll meet up with you out here. If it goes sideways, you know the plan. You get yourself out, okay?”

Sam grabbed Dean’s arm, harshly, pulling him to a stop in the street, “What?!” he hissed, “Dean, I wasn’t about to leave Meg, I’m sure as hell not going to leave you.”

“Sam, if they get me and you get involved, the only thing left to do will be to kill you. Okay? I’m alright doing this if it means my brother gets out.” Dean pulled them along again, fairly certain they were on the right street. The detention centre came into view and Dean was simultaneously relieved and apprehensive to see it. There were extra guards running about all over the place and if Dean hadn’t already known there was a code blue in effect he would certainly have known that something was happening just from the sheer level of the security presence.

“Alright,” he breathed, pulling Sam aside where they couldn’t be seen. “Wait here. I’m gonna do my thing, I’ll get Meg out. They don’t exactly have a back door so I’ll take her down that street there. Keep behind us and we should be able to jump the wall and head into the Fringes.”

“How are you going to get her out?”

“I’ll think of something,” Dean assured him, having only the vaguest plan in his mind, but he wasn’t going to admit that. “Now if I don’t come out of there in the next half hour or they bring me out in cuffs, you run. Get yourself into the Fringes and...you be safe, Sammy.” His hand had found Sam’s shoulder, but now that it was time to part he couldn’t seem to remove it. Sam didn’t draw away either, taking in every inch of Dean’s face as though committing it to memory. Neither of them said anything, but eventually, Dean tapped the side of Sam’s face, affectionately, “Alright. I’ll see you in a few.”

“Dean-”

“It’s gonna be okay, Sam,” Dean said with a certainty he didn’t feel and before they could talk each other out what was truly a monumentally terrible idea, Dean took off briskly in the direction of the detention centre. 

Thankfully, what few guards caught his eye gave him a nod, but nobody questioned his presence there. The interior was significantly quieter than the outside. There were a handful of guards manning the entryway, but none of them so much as quirked an eyebrow at Dean’s presence. He headed for them as though he were simply fulfilling orders. He’d barely thought to open his mouth when one of the guards, a cheery woman he vaguely recognised from some training day or something saw him and laughed.

“Oh hey, you guys don’t waste any time do you?” Dean wasn’t sure how to respond so he just gave a non-committal shrug as she leaned down and ruffled through some paper, “We only just got the confirmation of the transfer. You sure you can handle something like this in zone four?” she asked, but she was clearly joking with him, there was no hint of animosity in her tone and she hadn’t stopped smiling yet.

“That’s right...Donna, isn’t it?” Dean asked, remembering her name at just the right time.

“That’s right, just need to see your I.D. and you can go get her.”

Dean wasn’t sure exactly what was going on and the turn of events was certainly too good to be true, but he wasn’t about to complain about it. He pulled out the perfectly legitimate card that identified him as a member of zone four’s security force. Donna only gave it the briefest of glances, after all, why would she doubt him? Even if she did she would find everything perfectly in order.

“Okie dokie,” Donna said, handing Dean a pair of handcuffs, they were warded against angels and demons which was the security’s go-to when faced with something they didn’t understand. “She’s in cell one, you need help getting her?”

“Nah, I got her,” Dean said, casually, taking the cuffs and heading in the direction of the cells. If he walked a little faster than usual he could always claim that he was just determined to get the task at hand done.

On occasion, Dean had imagined what Meg might have looked like. Given that he knew so little of her and what he did know had come through Sam, Dean had always imagined someone much younger than himself, younger than Sam even. Not a child exactly, but probably not that far into her teens. It was a surprise then to open the cell and find a woman sitting inside. Still young but nowhere near a child. The very first thing Dean noted was that she didn’t appear to have been mistreated. The last thing he needed was to find her injured and have to carry her out of the city. But once he’d gotten that particular assessment out of the way, he wondered how it was she hadn’t been arrested sooner. Most women wore their hair up, covered if they could, a sign of modesty or something, but Meg’s hair was loose, falling about her face in dark waves. Neither was she wearing the traditional woollen dress complete with crosses woven into the bodice, she wore a loose-fitting shirt and jeans made of denim, clothing Dean hadn’t actually seen in some time. She didn’t seem to be afraid that Dean had come for her, in fact she seemed impatient if anything. She looked him up and down, clearly unimpressed.

“Meg?” he asked and that seemed to startle her.

She arched an eyebrow, “Don’t you mean, deviant? Monster? Mutant?” she drawled.

Dean stepped forward and she shrank a little from him, even though her expression didn’t change. Deciding to just make this quick and easy, Dean double-checked nobody had followed him and muttered under his breath, “Sam sent me.”

She paused for a moment and Dean was a little reassured that she didn’t believe him straight off the bat. “Who’s Sam?”

“I appreciate that. Clarence taught you well, yeah, I know about Clarence,” he added when he saw her eyes go wide, however briefly. “Now we haven’t got much time so you can come with me and get the hell out of here or you can stay here, all I want to do is get Sam out and he won’t go without you. So, make your choice.”

He was rather impressed with his short, impassioned speech, so it took the wind out of Dean’s sails a little when Meg smirked at him in response, “Yeah, Sam says you’re good, let’s go.” She held her hands out to him to cuff, without Dean needing to remind her to keep up the pretence and he slipped them on her, pulling her out of the cell a little rougher than he needed too, but she didn’t protest.

“There you are!” Donna’s voice called, cheerily, just as they left the holding cells and started to cross towards the way out. Dean’s heart sank but he didn’t show it, Donna was waiting for him, still at the desk, but now talking with Cas.

Cas’ eyes widened when he saw Dean holding onto Meg, but he had to commit to it and he shoved her forward. Dean held his breath, waiting for Cas to demand what he was doing there. But it never came. Between them Meg didn’t react but then why would she?

“Thank you,” Cas said to Donna, quietly, before falling into step on the other side of Meg. Neither of them spoke, not that Dean would be able to hear him over the pounding of his heart in his ears. They stepped outside and Dean expected Cas to turn on him the moment they took their first breath of fresh air. Still, he didn’t. Instead, he steered them towards the same street that Dean had intended to take Meg down, the one that would lead them to the easiest escape point in zone three. The very second they stepped off the main street Cas was on Dean.

To say he’d been caught by surprise was an understatement, but Cas had him pinned against the nearest wall, the forbidden angel blade to his throat and Dean could only stare at him, wondering what the hell was going on.

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Meg was saying, pulling at Cas’ arm which probably saved Dean’s life, he looked like he wouldn’t hesitate otherwise. Cas glanced back at Meg, though he didn’t lower the blade, “This is Sam’s brother, he was helping. Let him go, Clarence.”

Cas and Dean looked from Meg to each other and back again. In perfect unison, they both snapped, “ _ What _ ?!” 

“ _ You’re _ Clarence?!”

“Sam’s brother? As in  _ Sam _ , Sam?”

“ _ What the hell, Cas?! _ ”

“Sam never used your name, it never occurred to me that-”

“This is touching and all,” Meg interrupted, harshly, “But can this wait until we’ve put at least a bit of distance between us and the people who want to kill me?”

The sound of pounding footsteps heading towards them had Cas release Dean and the two of them turned, the blade still in Cas’ hand, ready to be raised again. When Dean saw that it was Sam his hand instinctively went to hold Cas’ arm back. He hadn’t come this far for his brother to get stabbed by an equally protective Clarence. 

Who was Cas. 

Cas was Clarence. 

It was a good thing that Cas had had the same idea on where they were headed because Dean just wanted to lie down.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean’s education had been sporadic at best, but he had learned in varying degrees over the years, mostly from Sam, that the Old People were not thought to have had sectors, zones or checkpoints. Those had come later when the survivors had needed to discern first angel from demon and then vampires, werewolves and all the monsters that followed. It was hard to get into a new sector, to pass through all the security, to elude the warding, to cross the salt rings, but getting out? That was comparatively easy. Especially for a small group accompanied by a captain of the security forces. It was a relatively simple matter of avoiding the patrols, clearing the walls seeing as the demonic warding sigils didn’t affect them and finally climbing the wall that separated the sector from the Fringes.

Nobody would pursue them, they wouldn’t risk lives for people who willingly entered the Fringes. Not when the Fringes would kill them anyway. It had been some years since Dean had walked between sectors but the fear that gripped him was the same.

Anything could leap out at him, anything probably would. All the creatures and monsters denied a home anywhere remotely settled lived between the sectors, among the wastes of the Fringes. The worst of them had been expelled to the Badlands, but they had no reason to venture that far. Dean was older now, more experienced and there hadn’t been much that could get the drop on him back when he and Sam had made the crossing. Still, when Dean had woken up that morning he wouldn’t have predicted he’d be on the run again by lunchtime so it was no surprise that every random noise, every crunch of a twig underfoot had him reaching for the blade he kept at his belt.

Despite their expectations, nothing bothered them. Dean knew from experience that the Fringes weren’t nearly as populated as the authorities tried to make out, but it would never do to become complacent. Not with Sam’s life.

They had fallen into a natural step with Cas and Meg despite having not exchanged any more words than were necessary to their escape. At some point, they would have a conversation, but that could wait until they had found shelter or a defensible location. Cas took point, stepping carefully, almost silently through the greenery, his eyes seemingly everywhere. Behind him, Meg and Sam followed, equally cautious and though they were both perfectly capable of defending themselves, well...Sam was and Dean assumed that Meg could more than hold her own, they had both fallen into the more easily protected position. Dean took up the rear, watching where they came from as much as he watched anything else, just in case the authorities decided to pursue them. It would be unheard of, but again, complacency. Not happening.

The sun was still up, though barely when they found a place to rest. Remnants of the Old People were everywhere so it was not a surprise to find a row of cabins almost reclaimed by the woodland, but more or less in one piece. They took the one that could be easily defended. The windows had been obstructed by greenery making the door the only way in. Cas went in first, checking that it was clear and apparently finding nothing more than a handful of what might have been rats once, beckoned the others to join him.

It was Meg who broke the silence that had followed them since they’d escaped, when she glanced around the room and seeing only the rotted remains of a bed frame, crushed and crumpled under little more than its own weight and said, “I’ll take the couch.”

It hadn’t even been that funny, but it was enough to elicit a small chuckle from Sam and that, in turn, seemed to diffuse the tension that had followed them. Dean felt as though he could breathe again, and the intangible strings that had held them together in rigid formation were instantly cut as the four broke away from each other, if only to demonstrate that they could.

“This should serve us for tonight at least, until we figure out what our next move is,” Cas muttered, poking his blade among the scattered debris, as though he feared something demonic lurked in the piles of leaves and long ruined furniture. “Dean?” he asked, checking for confirmation.

“Sure,” Dean shrugged. It hadn’t occurred to him that out here he and Cas were equals, Cas had just naturally taken the lead and Dean had followed his captain. Such distinctions were meaningless now though; it wasn’t as if either of them could still consider themselves officers of the guard.

“You got any food in there?” Meg asked Sam, gesturing to his backpack.

“Sure,” Sam shrugged it off and opened it, fishing through the military rations Dean had been consistently stealing from the guard, throwing a pack to Meg. She caught it but the sound of it rustling in her hand didn’t cover Dean’s scoff.

Meg rolled her eyes at him, “Sorry, I didn’t think to bring a picnic, I was too busy being imprisoned.”

Sam winced and Dean might have snapped at her to shut her mouth, but he was stopped when Cas called over, “Dean?” and gestured for him to follow him out.

The sun was just starting to set, bathing the sky in hues of orange and red, colours which seemed to make the greens of the forest more pronounced. ‘ _ Golden sunsets _ ,’ his mother had called them when she was alive and they never failed to remind Dean of her, even though he hadn’t been out in the woodland for years. Cas was sitting on a fallen tree, staring up at the sky in wonder, and for a moment Dean could only stare at him.

Dean had been in the Fringes before, the spaces between what remained of civilisation, long since reclaimed by nature after the Tribulation. All that remained were ruins and debris, breeding grounds for monsters. It was a place used to scare children into behaving, to threaten malcontents into civility, a desolate and unforgiving place where only the worst of creatures could survive. Right now, though, with rays of sunlight filtering through the branches into the clearing, casting a glowing shine across the forest floor and in its centre, Cas, to Dean it looked like the most beautiful place in the world.

“So,” he said, warmly, sitting down next to Cas. “Clarence, huh?”

“Hm,” Cas’ lips quirked at the edges, slightly, “She’s always called me that,” he said, thoughtfully, “I have no idea why.”

“So, she...she’s your...wife? Girlfriend?”

Cas cocked his head to one side, curiously, “No, nothing like that,” he said, and there really was no reason for Dean to feel relieved at that. “No...I...I found her many years ago, there was an off-the-books facility where they were experimenting on...” he hesitated, “...well...anything they thought was a monster or deviant. They weren’t sure what she was but they knew there was something different about her. An opportunity presented itself to escape and so...I took her.”

“You were a guard there?” Dean asked.

Cas shot him a glance, hesitant, before he nodded, “Yes. Of course. I couldn’t let them experiment on a child so we got out and we ran. We’ve been running ever since. And you?” he asked, after a moment where they both pondered their situation in silence. “Sam’s brother,” Cas said, a little amused, a little surprised, “I imagine you have a similar story.”

“Well...kinda, if you take out the bit about crazy scientists in secret labs I guess,” Dean replied with a grim smile. He sighed, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck even though it wasn’t itching. “We grew up in a village-”

“Really? I didn’t think there were many of those left,” Cas said, in soft surprise.

“Yeah, you’re not wrong. This one was South of here, it wasn’t all that close to any of the sectors but we had this community thing going. It was nice. My mom, she...she died when Sam was a baby, demon attack. So Dad became a hunter. Not that he wasn’t much of one already, you don’t survive long out here if you don’t know at least two ways to kill anything that moves. Sam and I picked up ‘most everything we know from him, but...he always knew, or he always suspected that something wasn’t right with Sammy. Sam was just a kid, y’know, he didn’t know he had to hide it and we didn’t know he had anything to hide. One day he starts talking in the school hall ‘bout voices in his head, people living in other places, places no one had ever heard of before. Didn’t take long for the whole village to freak out.” Dean sighed, brushing the phantom smoke from his face, still able to smell the pitch the crowd had burned. “Dad gave me Sam, told me to run, told me to take care of him and I did. We were out in the Fringes a few days, eventually we found some people. It wasn’t much of a village, but they took us in and didn’t ask any questions. We tested human, so I told them we’d gotten lost playing or something stupid.”

He gave a small chuckle, but Cas wasn’t laughing, regarding him with greater seriousness than even Dean was used to. “How old were you?”

Dean winced, “Must have been about ten, something like that...”

Cas’ hand shot out, almost involuntarily, grabbing Dean’s arm in something a little tighter than support.

“It’s okay,” Dean shrugged, “I mean we’re still alive. It’s harder to keep something like that hidden when there’s only about twenty of you though, so as soon as I could I took us off to one of the sectors and we’ve been bouncing around ever since. We usually manage a good few years before someone finds out,” he let out a soft groan, dropping his face into his hands, “They always find out.”

Beside him, Cas sighed the long-suffering sigh of someone who understands, of someone who gets it and that alone is enough to make Dean feel better. “How many times have you moved?” he asked.

“Seven,” Cas replied, with all the immediacy of someone haunted by the necessity of each of them. “You?”

“That was our fourth sector,” Dean sighed, “Still, maybe five will be our lucky number.”

Cas looked surprised at that, though Dean wasn’t sure what he’d expected. “You want to go to another sector?”

“Well, yeah,” Dean shrugged as though it was obvious, “It’s easier to hide among more people, they don’t ask as many questions when you get there either...”

“That’s true...”

“Where were you guys thinking of heading to next?”

“We thought we’d try for a village, actually,” Cas said, “You are right, of course, villages do present their own problems, but...has Sam told you about the others?”

“The others?”

Cas looked alarmed and looked away quickly, “At any rate, the nearest sector is sector seventeen, we’ll be heading in that direction anyway if you don’t mind the company?”

“Fine by me,” Dean said, unable to quite see a downside to having an extra pair of eyes and an additional blade to hand. Then, quite suddenly, he started laughing and Cas looked over at him, alarmed. “Sorry,” Dean waved him off, “It’s just...I always thought you were so legit, y’know, you were always there with the ‘Watch Thou for the Mutant’ and you did everything by the book...even after that whole thing with the demon I never expected...” he held his hands out to their increasingly darkening surroundings, “...this.”

Cas’ bright smile was still visible even as darkness encroached upon them. “As I once said before...I could say the same of you, Dean.”

* * *

They stayed in the cabin for two days. They were in no rush and they had the food and water to take their time, Dean had always made sure he had extra stashed away just in case, granted, he hadn’t expected to have to feed an additional two people, well an extra one at least. Cas always refused food, choosing to go on watch while the other three ate. He always took the worst of the night watches too, claiming he didn’t need much sleep. Meg claimed he caught up on both while Dean was on patrol, though Cas always looked surprised at the implication, as though he felt that having to eat or sleep was an admission of weakness. Dean didn’t question it, even as a captain, Cas had always pushed himself the hardest.

Sam and Meg got on as though they had known each other for years, which...technically they had. They hadn’t quite gotten the hang of speaking aloud to each other and frequently one or both of them would start laughing at something, leaving Dean and Cas to exchange eye rolls over their heads. Not that Dean minded, not really, he was just glad that Sam had someone he didn’t have to hide from, even better someone just like him.

“Hey Sam,” Dean said, softly while the two of them were on watch the night before they left. Well, Dean was on watch, Sam was just keeping him company, “Who’re ‘the others’?”

Sam bristled a little, surprised at the question and obviously a little uncomfortable. “Did Meg…?”

“Cas.”

“Huh...” Sam thought for a moment. “Sometimes...we hear people like we hear each other I mean. In our heads, other psychics I guess. It’s not consistent, not for me anyway and I never tried to talk back, it’s not like it is with Meg. I didn’t tell you-” Dean waved away any explanation he was about to offer, he wasn’t mad and he didn’t want to derail the conversation with apologies. “...Well, anyway, Meg hears them more often than I do, she says they’ve established a village somewhere, it’s full of people just like us,” he caught Dean’s eye, “well...like me and Meg, I guess. Her and Cas are gonna try and make a go of it there.”

He didn’t say anything else about it, instead Sam just looked up to the night sky where the stars were starting to come out. He’d not been able to do that at the home they’d just left, not with so many curfews in place. Dean hesitated, “Did uh...did you wanna go there?”

Sam gave him a small smile, “Nah, you’ve always said the bigger places were safer, right?” He paused just for a moment, “Dean, you’ve always looked out for me and-”

“Alright, shut up,” Dean mumbled, nudging him with his shoulder, “I know. I’m not leaving you, Sammy. You’re stuck with me.”

Sam smirked and looked back up at the stars, “Jerk.”

“Bitch.”


	5. Chapter 5

It seemed almost natural that the four of them inevitably paired off. Sam and Meg were almost always in each other’s company which left Dean and Cas to follow them. Not that they could ever wander too far without Dean, Cas or both admonishing them for potentially walking into an ambush. It had become the most common of their exchanges. Sam and Meg would forget that if they were talking to each other, aloud or in their heads, then they weren’t paying proper attention to their surroundings. Either Dean or Cas would call out to them, as though expecting an imminent attack and even when it didn’t appear they’d berate them for not keeping a decent eye out. Then they’d fall into step with the other and the two of them would roll their eyes at the idiocy of kids, even though Meg was probably close to Dean’s age, if not older...

Strangely, Dean and Cas bonded more over the shared protection of Sam and Meg than over the fact that they’d been working next to each other for months. It was Dean who had asked the first question, blurting it out as he and Cas stepped over a particularly muddy path.

“You ever have a moment where you think someone knows? And you’ve got no reason to think it, but someone looks at her the wrong way or a little too long and you think, shit, they know?”

Cas had paused for a moment, his eyebrows arched as he considered the question and Dean inwardly kicked himself for asking such a stupid question.

At least until Cas said, quietly, “All the time,” and even though he moved on ahead, Dean felt closer to the guy than he’d felt to anyone that wasn’t his brother in a long, long time.

“Has Sam ever been explaining a story and when asked where he’d heard it had to think of an appropriate lie or accidentally mentioned Meg?” Cas asked, one evening while they were setting up camp for the night.

“Dude, all the time,” Dean snorted, “I’ve lost count of the times he’s been saying something and you can see he’s just about to say ‘Meg’ and he covers it with Dean at the last minute and I have to pretend I’ve been listening to half of what he’s talking about.”

That was the night they burned their uniforms. Dean had spare clothes in his backpack and he fished his emergency spares out for Cas who had no such fallback, but they couldn’t head into any kind of community dressed as officers of the guard. It would raise too many questions at best and at worst they’d be strung up on sight. Cas had accepted Dean’s spares gratefully and after he’d changed he threw his uniform at Dean to be burned. Although Dean had turned to catch it, the clothes slipped right past his grip as his eyes caught on Cas, Cas wearing casual clothes, Cas wearing  _ his _ casual clothes and could not be encouraged away from the sight. Not for anything. 

They were a fairly similar shape, Dean was a little taller, a little broader in the shoulders while Cas carried a little more muscle, but there was no doubt that he wore Dean’s clothes well and it stirred something primally possessive in Dean’s gut to see it.

It was all grotesquely unfair. It wasn’t as though Dean could ever have acted on his attraction, not when Cas had been his superior officer, the fact that Dean was hiding Sam from the world notwithstanding. Now though, now they were out in the world and still unable to act on it, even though Dean occasionally found Cas staring at him every now and then, looking away quickly when Dean caught him. They were about to part ways, probably forever. In a few days the most Dean could hope for is the occasional check-in via Sam, assuming Meg and Sam even kept in touch.Assuming they even could. Still, it wouldn’t have been so bad if Cas didn’t have to look so damned good and relate to Dean on levels that no one else could even have come close to.

‘ _ Ass _ ,’ Dean thought, unfairly as he tossed Cas’ uniform onto the flame and watched it catch.

When he looked up Cas was standing beside him and Dean practically jumped a mile in the air. “ _ Cas _ ,” he hissed, as Cas’ hand came onto his arm to steady him, “We gotta get you a bell or something.”

“Sorry,” Cas mumbled, but Dean had gotten over it already, chuckling at the familiar apology.

“S’okay,” he gestured towards the tent where Sam and Meg had retired to, “They asleep?”

Cas glanced over at it and nodded. “I think so. It’s been a relatively painless trek,” he added, thoughtfully, “I always forget how the Fringes are exaggerated. I imagine whatever monsters exist out here have established communities of their own, it’s not as though they’re mindless beasts.”

The two of them sank into an easy silence, watching the flames dance and the evidence of their former lives disappear into smoke. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean could see Cas glancing over at him as though he might say something but thought better of it. Dean understood. They were a day, maybe a little more, out from sector eleven, assuming Sam’s map reading skills hadn’t messed up too badly.

He wouldn’t be too sorry to say goodbye to Meg. She was brash, loud, with a tongue that could flay a man at several yards. Dean couldn’t tell whether he liked her or not, but he knew deep down that she was a good kid and she was good for Sam. Cas though...Cas was something else…

“Did you ever think about...settling down?” Dean blurted out, the thought running away with him before he could stop himself from voicing it.

“That is the intention, yes.”

“I mean...with someone?”

Cas eyed him uncertainly, “I have Meg.”

“No, I mean,” Dean scrubbed a hand over his face, sighing into his own palm, this had not gone the way he’d expected it to. “ _ Romantically _ ,” he settled on eventually and Cas made an ‘oh’ of understanding.

But then he was silent for a long time and Dean was almost at the point of backtracking and telling him to forget he’d said anything when he finally answered, “Not really. There hasn’t been anyone who has captured my attention enough to run the risk of exposing Meg. Well...” he paused, with a smile Dean had never seen on Cas’ face before, “There was you,” he said, so bluntly Dean somehow managed to choke on air.

“Me?”

Cas’ face fell a little, “Oh...forgive me I seem to have misread your attentions-”

Dean laughed, a genuine laugh, one that he’d not had cause to laugh for a long time. “Nah, you didn’t,” he confessed, “Even when you were my boss I thought you were pretty hot. But...not hot enough to risk Sam, or my job,” he added, as an afterthought.

“For what it’s worth I’ve always thought you were ‘hot’ too,” Cas said, using air quotes like a total dork, which somehow only endeared him further to Dean. “But, Meg comes first.”

“You wouldn’t consider living in a sector again?”

“You wouldn’t consider living in a village?” Cas shot back, but there was no malice there, only as much of a genuine question as Dean had asked even though both of them already knew the answer. “Still, this has been nice,” Cas sighed, after they’d fallen into silence again. Dean raised an eyebrow at him and Cas added, “Being with someone who understands. Not having to hide so much.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, absently throwing a stick onto the fire as the two of them sank into an easy silence again.

“Would Sam ever react to something Meg said at an inappropriate time…?”

“Oh Cas, did he ever...”


	6. Chapter 6

Even if they hadn’t had a map, they would have known they were approaching civilisation, or at least what remained of it. The woodland started thinning out and there were patches of road, actual road, however broken. Sectors were built on the remains of what had once been towns or cities so it was no surprise to find signs of the Old People as they neared it. The woodland thinned out and in its place came ruined buildings. At first, just the occasional surviving wall, though surviving might have been too strong a term. Unlike most of the Old World remains which were dilapidated, crumbling structures, these looked like they had been blown away.

“This is weird, huh?” Sam muttered to Dean, as they stepped carefully through the remains. Even for the Fringes, it was quiet, eerily quiet, there was a tension hanging in the air that they couldn’t place. The four of them gravitated closer together and when Dean looked over Cas had his angel blade out, expecting the worst. Nobody wanted to speak, as though sound might be an intrusion too far.

“Cas?” Dean whispered, trying to get his attention. “What’s-”

He had been about to ask if Cas knew what was going on, but then they turned a corner and saw exactly what none of them had seen but each of them had sensed.

Dean had never seen a battleground before, he knew they must exist, it made sense. The Tribulation, when the angels and demons went to war, taking most of the planet with them, had seen skirmishes that had decimated entire continents. The entire world was made of the remains of their war, but Dean had never come across the site of an actual battle before.

He’d never seen a dead angel. Not that he was really seeing one now. But there was no doubt that they had stumbled upon the scene of an ancient engagement, and even though it had clearly been a minor one, the devastation was significant. If there had been buildings nearby they had been totally levelled and the ground looked charred in places.

There were no bodies, of course, but what did remain was somehow more chilling. Black smears marked the resting places of the demons but it was the sight of angel wings, burned into the ground, that would haunt the four of them long after they’d left. Cas kneeled beside one of them, his fingers tracing the wings shaped from ash, his blade still close as though he expected the dead to rise again. 

Stranger things had happened.

“We shouldn’t stay,” Dean said, his voice sounding strange and distant in the complete silence of their surroundings. “C’mon, guys.” He practically dragged Sam through it, though he stepped over any blackened parts, feeling it would be disrespectful even to demons to walk through their resting places.

Even the air felt different as they moved into what felt like a normal space once again, less oppressive, less tense. But when Dean looked back, Cas hadn’t moved. He was still kneeling beside burnt wings, though Meg had caught up to him and placed her hand on his shoulder, her lips were moving but there was no way Dean or Sam could have heard what she was saying.

“Cas! Come on!” Dean shouted, the sound echoing around the open space, but it seemed to do the trick. Cas and Meg glanced up and then followed them over, leaving the battleground behind them. Cas passed them, not pausing for a moment, leaving Dean and Sam to follow. “Hey,” Dean caught Meg’s arm as she passed. “The hell was that about?” But Meg just rolled her eyes at him and pulling her arm free, she fell into step beside Sam.

* * *

The sector came into view in the distance and it looked much like every other sector Sam and Dean had ever lived in. Still, the sight of it felt jarring, despite the relative safety and comfort it represented.

“There she blows,” Dean murmured as the four of them came to a natural stop.

“I don’t know much about sector eleven,” Cas said, quietly as they took the city in, “It’s one of the quieter settlements. We had no communication with them at all, though not for lack of trying on our part.”

From the outside, it looked just like every other sector Dean had been to. High walls, ramshackle barriers and a heavy-duty entryway that deterred and prevented anything untoward getting in. In theory, at least. Reaching into his backpack, Sam handed Dean a pair of binoculars and he scanned the area, passing them to Cas automatically when he was done.

“What’s that?” Cas asked, gesturing to a small structure close to the entryway but not quite part of the sector itself.

Dean took the binoculars back to look. “Looks like a guard post, sector nineteen has one outside too. People coming into the city need to present themselves there, it means nothing non-human even gets through the door. You know the drill, Sam,” he muttered, packing away the binoculars but then he paused, his hand hovering over the zip. He looked between Meg and Cas before he nudged Sam. “Hey, give them your pack.”

Sam raised an eyebrow.

“C’mon, Sam. It’s another couple of days for them, save them stocking up here,” Dean said, waving his hand at the sector behind them. “Anything you wanna keep can go in my bag. Contraband goes in the bottom pocket inside, the hidden one.”

Cas took Sam’s bag from him and he rummaged through the remaining ration packs inside, even though it occurred to Dean that he hadn’t actually seen Cas eat a single one of them. Whatever, the guy must have eaten something. He looked up at Dean, his expression soft, “Thank you, Dean. This will all be quite useful.”

Dean blushed a little and he scratched the back of his neck in a gesture born entirely of nerves. “Yeah, well, someone’s gotta look out for your ass out here. You guys packed light,” he added with a grin, laughing when both Meg and Cas rolled their eyes at him. Sam zipped Dean’s bag up and threw it back at him. “Hey, Cas, you wanna do the honours?” Cas cocked his head, unsure as to what Dean was asking, “Pat us down, if you can’t find anything they sure as hell won’t.”

“Of course,” Cas said, stepping forward as Meg scoffed.

“How come he gets to have all the fun?”

Dean rolled his eyes, “Cas was one of the guards, he at least knows what he’s doing.”

“I’m sure I could learn,” Meg grinned as Cas started patting down Sam’s legs. Sam’s expression hadn’t changed but somehow Dean knew he was projecting one of his many bitch faces into her mind, he would have to congratulate him on practising the talent.

With an expression that showed them all that Cas took this mock search as seriously as he’d ever taken a real one, he finished up with Sam and checked their bag, completely failing to locate the hidden compartment even though he was specifically looking for it. Then there was only Dean left. Cas stepped forward and if Dean thought that this might turn into something remotely sexy, he was wrong, as Cas harshly forced his arms up so he could run his hands along his sleeves.

“What?” Cas asked, eventually, noticing that Dean had a small grin on his face while Cas made sure there was nothing strapped to Dean’s boots.

“Wasn’t exactly how I imagined you getting your hands on me for the first time,” Dean said with a sly wink. He could afford to be bold, they were about to part ways after all. Cas held his gaze for a long time, but Dean didn’t look away, even though his mouth had gone quite dry.

Cas cocked an eyebrow which did things to Dean that not even Cas’ touch was doing to him. “Hm,” he hummed, thoughtfully. “Was this what you were thinking?” he asked and it was a good thing Sam and Meg had walked ahead a little, deep in their own goodbyes or they’d have seen the deep shade of red Dean flushed as Cas allowed his hands to trail up along his thighs in a very different fashion to the way he’d been touching him just a few moments before.

High enough to be indecent, Cas quickly drew his hands back, smiling innocently at Dean from his place on his knees, “I think you’re good,” he said, his voice a little rougher than Dean was used to. Not that Dean could register much, staring down at Cas somewhere between utter shock and perfect bliss.

“Are you  _ sure _ you don’t want to try your luck in a city?” Dean rasped, aware that the two of them were staring at each other with something close to hunger.

Cas held his hand out, allowing Dean to help him up, though once he was standing he took a step too close into Dean’s personal space. Dean could feel Cas’ breath on his cheek as he leaned in and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to try your luck in a village?”

Dean smirked, “You know I’m sorely tempted to reconsider.”

They both smiled at each other, knowing that this was little more than harmless flirting before Cas let out a sigh and let his forehead lean against Dean’s. Dean flinched in surprise but leaned into the touch regardless.

“I’m glad I had this time to get to know you, Dean,” Cas said, quietly.

“Yeah...me too. I wish-” Dean stopped himself, abruptly, before he voiced a sentiment that he could never give voice to. But Cas understood. He could see in the blue of his eyes that he did, the life they’d chosen was a lonely one, but it was the one they’d chosen. Meg and Sam’s lives depended upon it.

“We’ll see you in,” Cas said, kindly, “it’s the least we can do for all you’ve done for us.”

“You don’t have to.”

Cas smiled at him and Dean would never admit to grinning like an idiot, even though this constituted their goodbye. “I’d like to.”

From somewhere beside them, Meg scoffed dramatically, “Seriously? You’ve had all week to get a room,” but Dean caught her attempting to glare at Cas and there was a hint of softness there. Cas stepped up to her and they exchanged a fond look before they started leading the way towards the checkpoint. Sam lingered behind a little, waiting for Dean to pass him so he could fall into step beside him, a pained expression on his face.

“Hey, Dean,” he said, quietly, “I-”

“It’s fine, Sam,” Dean grumbled.

“No, Dean, listen,” Sam drew them to a stop, his hand firm on Dean’s arm. “If you want to try for the village,” Dean opened his mouth to cut him off but Sam wasn’t having it, “I don’t want you to have to give up your life for me, not to keep me safe, it’s not worth it.”

“Sam!” Dean snapped, “It’s fine, okay. Besides, it wouldn’t work anyway.”

“Seriously Dean? You’ve had a crush on the guy for like forever and from what Meg says the guy’s pretty smitten with you, too. We’ve been watching you, you guys  _ get _ each other and it’s a pretty unique situation, you wouldn’t have to worry about keeping us secret...”

Dean put his hand on Sam’s shoulder and said again, “Sam,” but it was gentler now. “It’s not about you or Meg, okay. Maybe Cas and I could get to know each other better, but it’s not like we have much chance of that happening. He thinks he can keep Meg safe in a village, I think I can keep you safe here. Now we might both be right, but we’re not gonna gamble your safety just so we can get to know each other.”

Cas and Meg had both stopped ahead of them, realising that neither Sam or Dean were walking with them. With a tap to the arm, Dean gestured that they should follow, though his eyes were drawn to Cas for a moment.

“I just-” Sam started, but Dean waved off the sentiment. He knew, Sam knew, it didn’t need to be said.

“C’mon,” Dean said, softly, “Let’s go find our new home.”


	7. Chapter 7

“You don’t have to come all the way up to the gate,” Dean insisted as the four of them neared the gatehouse.

“Sure we do,” Meg replied, sunnily, “We can have a big tearful goodbye on the doorstep, it’ll be great.”

Sam, Dean and even Cas seemed to roll their eyes in unison, but it didn’t seem like Cas was keen on saying farewell prematurely either. He did, however, bring them to a stop just as they came into sight of the guard post.

“Alright,” Dean sighed, “This is it, you guys take care of yourselves.”

Meg gave Dean a mock salute, but she turned to Sam and pulled him into a tight hug that neither of them seemed particularly eager to break. Cas and Dean exchanged an awkward look, did they hug? The sound of the guard post’s heavy metal door screeching open as the guards came out to check over the new arrivals spurred Dean into action. Without much finesse he reached out and pulled Cas against him, chuckling as he caught Cas by surprise and had to stop him from stumbling.

Cas’ hands patted against Dean’s back, assuringly and they broke apart. “Good luck, Dean,” Cas said, warmly.

“You too, Cas,” Dean said, “C’mon Sam, let’s not keep them waiting.”

The four of them turned toward the guards that had just stepped out and Dean wasn’t entirely sure what exactly happened but somehow all hell broke loose. He’d expected to take Sam and step forward, they’d introduce themselves with their standard cover story of having left a village (nobody kept track of the villages anyway) looking for a better life in a sector. They’d be checked and tested, let in and their new life would begin.

What he had not expected and what was pretty far from Dean’s mind was the way in which Cas shouted, “ _ Dean!”  _ and pulled him back so harshly Dean fell to the ground. As Dean pushed himself back onto his feet he saw that Cas had pulled Meg and Sam behind him, standing between them and the guards, his angel blade ready, even though just the sight of it would have been enough for the guards to order his execution.

Then he saw the guards. Or rather, he saw the creatures that had been pretending to be guards. At the sight of Cas they had discarded all attempts at appearing human, their faces seemingly split open revealing huge mouths with far more teeth than any creature Dean had seen. The sight of it only lasted a second before they advanced, looking as human as they had a moment ago. If it weren’t for Cas’ visceral reaction and the way they seemed to be regarding Cas as something they might like to eat, something Dean would not put past them given how many teeth they seemed to have, he would have assumed he’d imagined the sight.

“Clarence...” Meg said, her voice quavering a little as he insisted on keeping his body between them.

“Aw, it’s little Castiel,” one of the... _things_ scoffed, his voice high and mocking, “Where’s your flight, little birdie?”

The other laughed, “I think they left him behind.”

“ _ Clarence _ ,” Meg hissed. Dean wanted to ask what the hell was going on, but he didn’t recognise the monsters that were slowly advancing and he was caught on what they were saying.

_ Castiel _ ?

“I say we eat the others and  _ then _ we eat him.”

“Cas!” Meg snapped again and this time Cas reacted. In one fluid motion, he slipped his blade into whatever pocket he had summoned it from before he spun on his heel, wrapping his arms around the three of them. Dean was on the verge of asking what the hell he was doing, but he never got the chance, there was the distinct sound of feathers on the breeze and a rush of air that forced him to close his eyes. When they opened, barely a second later they were back in the woodland, at the last place they’d set up camp, the remains of Dean and Cas’ uniforms still smeared on the floor.

For a moment, nobody moved, the only sound was the combined panting of their heaving chests, though why they should be breathless Dean couldn’t say. His senses returned to him with enough force to hurt and Dean pushed Cas away harshly, sending him sprawling across the floor as Dean pulled Sam up, automatically moving in front of him to protect him.

“ _ What the hell?! _ ” he yelled and he couldn’t help the tremor of fear that slipped into his voice. “ _ Castiel _ ?! That’s an angel’s name,” he snapped, stupidly, as though  _ that _ was the most telling point in all of this. The guy had an angel blade, the...the... _ whatever they were _ had referred to his ‘flight’, oh and he’d apparently flown them to safety which Dean should probably be grateful for but right now all he could think about was the danger Cas presented to them, even as he pushed himself up from the muddy ground.

Somewhere beside him, Dean was aware of Sam’s hand on his arm, a placating, “Dean,” on his lips.

It was ridiculous to think he stood any chance if Cas- if  _ Castiel _ decided to fight back then Dean knew he was toast. But he was too angry to care about such minutiae.

Cas stood, dusting himself down as though nothing of consequence had happened, but when he caught Dean’s eye, Dean saw that he looked terrified. It might have given him pause, but there wasn’t much chance of that. Cas opened his mouth to make his case, to protest, to say something but before the first words left his lips Meg stepped in front of him and gave Dean a hard shove. Not enough to push him over, just enough to get his attention.

“Leave him alone!” she snapped. “Congratulations, you figured it out. Yes, he’s an angel, an angel who just saved your ass and not for the first time.”

“He’s an angel!” Dean roared back, noting out of the corner of his eye how Cas’ shoulders dropped at the accusation. “It’s his fault we’re in this mess! It’s his fault the world went to shit and we’ve got monsters-”

“Oh, sure! It’s all his fault! Cas started the Tribulation, it was all his idea. He woke up one morning and thought ‘Hey, I’m bored, I know, let’s devastate the world.’ Do you hear yourself?” she hissed, angrily, which was the first thing to actually make Dean hesitate. He was used to Meg’s snark, he had never seen her angry before, she was furious and every part of it was directed at Dean.

The silence was oppressive until Cas broke it. “I’m sorry, Dean,” he said, softly, but his voice seemed lower than usual. “It’s true, I...I am an angel,” he looked almost ashamed to admit it. “But, nothing has changed, I won’t hurt you, or Sam,” he added.

Another silence. This time broken by Sam, who put his hand on Dean’s shoulder and said, gently, “He saved our lives, Dean,” as though that was enough to make up for what he’d done. What he was.

But Sam and Meg were looking at Dean, Sam almost pleading, Meg as though she wanted the fight and behind her Cas...Cas still looked terrified. What the hell did he have to be terrified for? They all knew the stories...but Sam and Meg were right. Cas had saved their lives and if he truly wanted them dead then he would hardly have had to wait until now to act upon it. He could have let Dean die that day at the guard station when the demon came.

With a snarl, Dean wrenched his arm from Sam’s grasp and pointed a harsh finger at Cas. “I don’t trust you,” he spat, before he stalked off in the opposite direction, ostensibly to make sure they hadn’t been followed, but mostly to put some space between them and everyone knew it.

He was still in earshot of them when he heard Sam breathe a sigh, something tinged with relief and exhaustion. “So...” he said, quietly, “Where’s this village you were heading for?”


	8. Chapter 8

It was laughable in a way that was anything but funny that Dean had been lamenting the idea of parting ways with Cas.

With _Castiel_.

An angel.

An angel whom Dean had expressed an interest in, who had reciprocated that interest, who had been travelling with him and with Sam. Dean had spent his whole life trying to keep Sam safe, only to end up in the company of the most dangerous creatures on earth. One of the very beings that had reduced this world to ruin and ash and condemned humanity to live the way they did; struggling to eke out even a basic life, forever hunted by practically everything that lurked in the shadows.

When Sam had asked what Dean’s problem was, as though he’d needed to ask seeing as the guy was a _freaking angel_ , that’s what he had fallen back on. The role of the angels in all of this. But, that wasn’t why Dean was annoyed. The guy had an angel blade, Dean had never seen him eat, his eyes were surely too blue to be human. The signs had been there for him to pick up on, but he hadn’t, he’d thought with his dick not his head and he’d gone and gotten a crush on an angel.

_An angel_.

Weirdly, Sam seemed utterly unfazed, even though he was as surprised as Dean to learn the truth of Castiel’s existence. Dean had wanted to put as much distance between them and Meg as possible but Sam had put his foot down.

“He saved our lives, Dean.”

“He’s an angel!” Dean had shouted, uncaring that Castiel and Meg were well within earshot. Meg had huffed, loudly. Castiel had looked sad.

“If he was going to hurt us he’s had loads of chances and he could have left us to...to...whatever the hell those things were.”

“Leviathan,” Castiel offered tentatively, but Dean had rounded on him, regardless.

“Shut the hell up, you’re not a part of this conversation.”

He looked hurt, but whatever, the guy was an angel. He could handle some hurt feelings.

“We’ll stick with them until we get to the village and then we’ll figure out where the next sector is, okay?”

“Fine,” Dean snapped, “But I don’t have to like it.”

And boy, did he not.

He wouldn’t speak to Castiel, he could barely bring himself to look at him. They still had to arrange watches which was done through a series of terse words and harsh grunts on Dean’s part. Castiel sighed a lot, but got on with it, seeming to withdraw into himself. Meg seemed to be constantly glaring at Dean, her face a permanent scowl. Every time Dean had the need to address her, she would scoff or respond in her usual sarcastic manner, but with a great deal more edge to it.

Sam was fine. Sam talked to all of them as easily as he ever had, as though Dean weren’t deliberately keeping his distance. At first, Castiel had tried to catch his eye, probably wanting to explain himself or something. It didn’t take long for him to catch onto the idea that Dean was not interested. Eventually, he just started conducting himself as quietly as possible, his shoulders a little hunched. He seemed smaller somehow, even though Dean knew that his true form would likely dwarf the forest.

Still, Dean had questions and he managed a few days before blurting out the one that was foremost on his mind.

“Hey, flyboy,” he called, harshly, trying not to think too much on how relieved Castiel looked to be spoken to at last, even if it took him a moment to realise that he was now ‘flyboy’.

He frowned, “That’s not my name.”

“Yeah, I don’t care,” Dean grunted, ignoring the way that Castiel’s face fell. “If you’re an angel why don’t you just fly you and Meg to wherever it is you’re going?”

“I’d rather not talk about any of it if you don’t mind.”

Dean rolled his eyes, “I do mind.”

He held Castiel’s gaze for a moment, dimly aware that he was being an asshole. Eventually, Castiel looked away. “It’s not safe, there are things that can track me when I’m in flight. I only do it as a last resort.”

“The hell can track an angel?”

“Other angels,” Castiel said, grimly and stepped away. For the first time, it was him to put the distance between the two of them.

He didn’t maintain it though. When they stopped for the night, Castiel was the one who came to Dean, asking if he wanted to rest, if he had a preference for which watch he wanted and all Dean wanted to do was tell him to get lost, but he was persistent. He was as attentive as he’d ever been, though granted he seemed more hesitant to approach. The easy conversation, the connection over protecting Sam and Meg, the flirting, all of that was gone, as was Castiel’s smile. But still, he tried. Worse, it was working. Dean didn’t want it to be, he wanted to stay mad, and he was, but it was hard to keep his guard up when Castiel was acting the way he’d always acted. He was still the kind, considerate guy he’d always been. He was still the guy Dean had been crushing on when what Dean really wanted was for him to turn into a dick with wings and show them all why angels were the worst creatures in existence.

It was infuriating.

“You ever going to talk to him?” Sam grumbled, searching through Dean’s bag for some extra food for Meg.

Dean gave a small shrug, “I talk to him.”

“You cuss him out, Dean, there’s a difference.”

“Whatever, how long until we get to this psychic town of yours?”

Sam looked as though he might challenge him, but with a sigh, he gave it up. “Meg thinks we’ll get there tomorrow.”

“What then?”

Arching an eyebrow Sam regarded his brother, curiously, “Whatever you want. I figured we wouldn’t stay seeing as Cas and Meg will be there.”

“I got no beef with Meg,” Dean muttered and though Sam glared at him, he didn’t say anything. Throwing Dean’s bag down harshly at his feet and stomping off.

Whatever, Dean thought. After tomorrow it wouldn’t be a problem.

* * *

If Sam were not so inclined to trust Meg, regardless of the company she kept, Dean wouldn’t have believed they were approaching a settlement, however small it might be. All was woodland, more woodland and when they did come across what might have been the remains of the Old People, it had been largely reclaimed by woodland.

They had probably been walking through the remains of a town for some time before any of them noticed it. What remained of a road was broken and fractured underfoot and it was not until they came across an actual building with actual walls, (however much they were crumbling) that any of them realised they’d come into what had once been civilisation.

“We’re close,” Meg said, coming to a stop in front of what looked like a ruined store. She looked it over and turned to Sam, “What d’you think?”

Sam held his hands out, “No idea, you hear them more than me.”

Dean glanced around them, it was strangely quiet. Not the kind of quiet you would expect in a deserted place, the kind of quiet that prickled through the air. The kind that said something was about to happen, Dean knew it well, he knew to trust it, it had saved his life on more than one occasion. He was about to call over that they should keep going when Castiel cut across him.

“We need to leave, we need to leave _now_.”

Something was shifting, Dean couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. Castiel pulled Meg close to him and gestured for Sam to follow, his angel blade out, though the sight of it couldn’t give Dean much comfort right now, only serving to remind him of what he was. They started moving as one when the silence was broken by the distinct snap of a twig, in a way it was reassuring. If it could make a noise, it could be tracked and if it could be tracked, it could be killed.

When Dean turned and caught black eyes staring back at him he was only a little disheartened. Demons were one of the hardest things Dean had ever had to kill, but it could still be done. Without even realising he’d reached for it, the blade that would do the job was in his hand. The demon didn’t seem particularly afraid, but then, they never did. They didn’t usually grin though and even at a distance, Dean could see the demon’s lips quirk into a malevolent smile.

“Dean,” Castiel hissed the warning from somewhere behind him, but Dean didn’t take his eyes off the demon.

Not even when he heard the similar cracking of twigs underfoot that surrounded them.

“ _Shit_ ,” Dean breathed, realising too late why the demon was grinning.

He and Castiel really did work well together, Dean thought, as they turned in unison, taking off as fast as they could. The demons were right behind them, their footfalls coming hard and fast after them, but Castiel made sure Sam and Meg were in front of him. If anyone was going to take a hit, it wouldn’t be them.

They tore through the crumbling streets, before Meg shouted, “This way!” and they all followed, without question. Not that there was time to question it even if they were inclined to. Dean saw something come into view, a building in surprisingly good condition in that it seemed to have all its walls intact and was recognisable as shelter.

There was movement in its vicinity but Meg didn’t falter, leading them directly towards it. She called something, but it was lost to Dean who fell heavily to the ground, tackled by the demon closest to him. He had been expecting it, but he still grunted as the blow took the wind from his lungs. The demon rolled Dean under him, but that proved to be a mistake as Dean took the momentum from the motion and easily stabbed it with the knife. Its eyes burned brightly for a moment before they sparked out and Dean could kick himself free. Of course, nothing was ever that easy and no sooner had he pulled himself up than another demon tackled him, sending the knife flying from his hand.

Everything was happening so quickly. The demon threw a fist across Dean’s face and Dean felt his jaw crack, blood filling his mouth so quickly he reflexively spat it out. He could hear someone shouting, probably Sam, and he saw the demon pull his arm back to hit him again.

The blow never landed, instead the demon threw his head back, a blinding light burning through his eyes and mouth. It seemed to scream but the sound was cut out abruptly as the light vanished, revealing two burning holes where its eyes had once been. Dean stared up, uncomprehending, as Castiel pulled the demon from him, throwing what remained of it aside and reaching out to help Dean up.

Dean took his hand, wordlessly, a little dazed from what had happened, but anything he was going to say was lost as three more demons stepped towards them. They were lesser demons, the kind that would struggle to blend in among humans, their eyes were too black, their bodies too wasted, but they could still pack a punch. Dean looked around for his knife but Castiel took a step in front of him as though to shield him from the demons.

“Cas-” Dean started, but he didn’t get to finish the thought. Castiel brought himself up to his full height and stared down at the demons. There was something crackling through the air, something Dean had never felt before and then he was jumping away from Castiel, staring in awe as, with a sound like a thunderclap, the shadow of two black wings unfurled from his back. Dean barely noticed the demons’ stumble back, realising what it was they were up against and deciding against it.

They ran.

Dimly, Dean was aware that they’d gone, he could track the movement in his periphery, but his eyes were entirely on Castiel’s wings. Then they were gone, as quickly as they had come but with far less drama. He seemed to stumble a little and before he’d realised he’d done it, Dean had stepped forward to steady him.

“Hey, you okay?”

Castiel was heavy against his arm, but then he looked up, his eyes flashing with the power he’d revealed just a moment ago. It vanished under Dean’s concerned gaze and he seemed to withdraw into himself. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, pushing Dean away, “I just...I thought it would be the easiest way to get rid of them.”

“Cas-” Dean breathed, caught somewhere between terrified and amazed, “That was-”

Abruptly, Castiel pulled back, “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, I-”

“Dean?!” Sam, apparently entirely unaffected by Castiel’s dramatic show of strength, practically taking Dean to the floor as he hugged him.

“Alright, Sammy, alright, get off!”

“Are you okay? I thought...I thought they’d...”

Dean shrugged his brother off, “I’m fine, Sam. Just some demons, y’know,” he smirked, as though it was no big deal, knowing that later, once Sam was out of sight, he was going to have to thank Castiel for saving his life. He spat again, his split lip filling his mouth with blood and he knew he was going to have one hell of a bruise when he woke up.

Beside them Meg nudged Castiel, trying to be playful, but the worry obvious on her face. “Are you alright?”

When Castiel replied, he sounded tired. His, “I’ll be fine,” didn’t sound particularly convincing, something that Meg clearly picked up on too and she shifted herself under his shoulder, bracing him.

“You gotta stop doing that,” she muttered, annoyed.

“They were-”

“He’s not worth it,” Meg snapped, glaring at Dean when he realised she was talking about him. “What? You treat him like shit for days and he’s still supposed to die for you?!”

Dean looked from Meg to Castiel and back again, unsure as to what she was getting at. “The hell? He flashed his wings, he hardly took a bullet for me.”

“That’s enough,” Castiel snapped before Meg could say whatever it was she had opened her mouth to say. Dean caught his eye, wanting to say something more, but instead Castiel nodded to the space behind them.

The movement Dean had clocked earlier was revealed to be a small group of people, all gathered in front of the building, one of the tallest Dean had seen to survive the Tribulation, looking at them curiously.

“It’s them, Clarence,” Meg smiled, “The others.”

Dean looked to Sam for confirmation, but even when Sam nodded his agreement Dean still looked at them suspiciously. They looked back in fear. It was hardly surprising, given that they’d brought an angel to their door.

“Hey,” Sam called, waving a little sheepishly.

One of the younger men broke apart from the group and stepped towards them, a little hesitant but definitely moving towards them.

“Sorry about that,” Meg said, “We were-”

“ _Dude_ !” the guy breathed, looking at Castiel like he was a marvel. Though Dean supposed, he really was. “That was _amazing_! Can you get rid of them all the time? They’re picking us off one by one right now.”

Castiel shifted a little, still supported mostly by Meg. “There are wardings you can draw that repel demons, I...I could show you how to?” he offered.

The guy’s face lit up, looking at Castiel in open reverence. For some reason, it made Dean uncomfortable. “Dude, yes! Come on, all of you, let me introduce you to the others!”


	9. Chapter 9

For the first time in a long time, perhaps ever, Dean allowed himself to relax. Not entirely, of course, even when they seemed to be safe there would always be threats. But, the little haven Sam’s fellow psychics had carved out for themselves seemed to be safe enough. Safer than camping out in the Fringes at any rate.

They called themselves the ‘Special Children’. Sam had nodded politely, Dean and Cas had exchanged a glance and Meg looked as though she had swallowed something unpleasant, but they were harmless enough. Most of them kept themselves to themselves, rarely coming out of their rooms except for their meals, but there were a handful who were happy for the company. None more so than Andy, the excitable guy who had met them after the skirmish with the demons. He grated on Dean a little, but not so much he could actively dislike him.

They had made their home in the ruins of what had once been a ‘hotel’. Dean had read about such things in what pre-Tribulation literature had survived. The ground floors were ruined and the upper floors didn’t look particularly healthy, but the walls had been patched up where they could be and while it was all a little ramshackle, there was at least a roof and a bed for everyone. Well – something that could pass for a bed. It was mostly bundles of fabric that had been scrounged together, but it was as clean as one could get in the Fringes and comfortable enough. They at least maintained their privacy.

Dean and Sam had a room opposite Meg and Castiel. Castiel didn’t need the bed space but he no doubt appreciated the space. Dean certainly did, enjoying that he no longer needed to look over his shoulder and keep such a close eye on the angel. Though he missed having him close. He missed the easy camaraderie they’d had, but that had gone up in a flutter of wings and a blur of angelic grace. Since they’d arrived, Castiel had made a point of keeping out of Dean’s way, to the point that they’d barely seen each other. Not that Dean noticed all that much because to everyone’s surprise, none more so than Dean himself, he was actually enjoying this life.

It was a strange realisation to come to. It was something he had never expected to find. After all, Sam would never be safe around other people, there would  _ always _ , always be the pressure of hiding, the threat of slipping up, the go-bags hidden in the corner of the room waiting for another hasty escape. But here? Sam was free to be himself.

Dean learned that not all of the ‘Special Children’ communicated silently, some preferred to use their words, some had never gotten out of the habit of hiding their abilities, so he never felt like an outsider, the only one not privy to constant conversation. Sam said he spent a lot of time tuning it all out anyway. Meg had already gotten quite practised at that element of it, and if Sam did talk to anyone in his head, it was usually Meg, as it had always been. Except now, Sam could laugh in the privacy of their room and Dean didn’t need to shoot him a glare, though it was a hard habit to unlearn.

Dean could breathe.

He could do things for himself, so he did. There were always things that needed doing around the place; walls to be repaired, defences to be shored up. Demons were not the only creatures that threatened the small community. There was apparently a nest of vampires somewhere nearby that occasionally tried their luck but rarely got very far, they were mostly too busy fighting the werewolf pack that lay further North. They were the only constant presence in the area but for the most part, they were left alone. The major risks came when they had to make a supply run, though they just about to struggled to grow a smattering of vegetables in poor excuses for window boxes. But now they had Dean to help with that. Not that he needed to do anything beyond help Andy or one of the others scavenge in the ruins nearby. The demons had moved on, as they were wont to do, no doubt looking for some other poor souls to torment. Dean was happy to go out, demon-killing knife in hand, after all, it would work just the same against non-demons. And when he wasn’t doing that he could just...sit around. There were a few pre-Tribulation books and magazines scattered around the place, even if they weren’t particularly interesting Dean devoured them. He fixed up an old radio and found some tapes to go in it. He’d say this for the Old People, they’d made some damn good music.

He was humming along to one of the better tunes on the tape, reading a battered novel that rather ironically, in Dean’s opinion, seemed to warn against the horrors of war, when he noticed Sam watching him, smiling.

“What?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the text in front of him.

“Hm?”

“What are you staring at?”

Sam huffed, but he was still smiling. “You,” he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, “Look at you.”

Dean glanced up, folding the page so he wouldn’t lose it later. “What?”

Sam beamed, “I’ve never seen you so relaxed before, I think you like it here more than I do.”

“It’s alright,” Dean shrugged, but he couldn’t stop his grin, “wait...you don’t like it here?”

“Oh no it’s fine, it’s alright...” Sam trailed off, but Dean was watching him intently, “it’s fine, really. I just...I worry about Cas, that’s all.”

“Cas?”

“Yeah, I mean, he’s out there now sorting their warding out so the demons can’t get in. They want him to use all his angel mojo, but I dunno...I don’t like the way they’re sending him out there on his own.”

Something icy curled in Dean’s gut and before he’d even realised he was doing it, the book had been tossed aside and Dean was pulling on one a flannel shirt, grabbing the knife as he rose.

“He’s out there alone?” he snapped.

“Yeah? Hey, Dean, where are you going?”

But Dean was already out the door and stepping over the debris that still littered the tattered stairwell. Andy poked his head out of the kitchen area, drawn out by the commotion.

“Hey Dean, you-”

“Where’s Cas?” Dean called, not stopping to wait for the answer.

“Castiel? Oh he’s just...he’s just out back, he’s-”

Dean was gone before Andy could finish the sentence. He’d heard enough.

It was cold outside and for a brief, ludicrous moment Dean missed the relative warmth of the sectors. There was nothing out here to protect against the approaching cold season. Not that he paused long to appreciate it, ignoring the sudden drop in temperature to jog around the back of the building, way too relieved than he would ever admit to see Castiel, as tousled as ever, painting warding sigils onto the walls.

“The hell do you think you’re doing?” Dean rasped, by way of greeting and Castiel turned to him, genuinely confused as to why Dean would be there.

Castiel looked from the wall to Dean to the wall again. “I’m warding the place against demons.”

“You’re coming out here, on your  _ own _ ?”

With a small shrug, Castiel turned his attention back to the task at hand. “They didn’t want to risk one of their own for such a thing. I would have preferred company but they didn’t seem eager to risk their lives keeping a lookout for me.”

“Why the hell didn’t you come find me?” Dean demanded, not even hiding his anger that the ‘Special Children’ would send Castiel out like this, without a care for his safety.

Castiel looked squarely into Dean’s eyes and Dean flinched from the sincerity he found there. “I believe you’ve made your feelings towards me quite clear, Dean. You don’t have to stay.”

“The hell I don’t,” Dean grunted, leaning against the wall in one of the few spaces he could without getting paint on him. “They shouldn’t be risking you like this, you shouldn’t let them.”

Again with the shrug, “It’s worth it if it protects you, Meg and Sam...and the others.”

Something that felt painfully like guilt twisted in Dean’s gut and he winced against the notion of it. “Yeah well...” he mumbled, “you’re...you’re important too, Cas, okay? Don’t go doing stupid shit like this, again, alright?”

Even though Dean kept his eyes deliberately on some point in the distance, as though he were scouting out the perimeter, he was aware of Castiel looking at him. He could feel the smile on the guy’s face warming him and he was determined to quash down the flush he could feel creeping into his cheeks.

When Castiel spoke it was full of warmth, gratitude and something that sounded like relief. “Thank you, Dean.”

Dean made a noise that was probably a response, but Castiel went back to his work and Dean stayed beside him, watching his back.

* * *

Alright so maybe Castiel wasn’t that bad. Maybe, Dean realised with rising frustration, Castiel was the same as he’d always been and all the bad things Dean believed of him were born from what he knew of angels. Given that he’d rejected most of what The Bible and the other writers had said about mutants, it did seem kinda hypocritical to take everything it said about angels at face value. Castiel didn’t seem like the kind of guy to raze the earth in righteous fury, he was just the same as ever.

Dean was still pissed that Castiel had kept it from him. Not that he could really blame him for it. If he had revealed the truth then Dean would have...acted exactly the way he had done. But with more cussing, more storming off and they probably would have been eaten by whatever the hell those things had been posing as gatekeepers. It was hard to remain antagonistic when Cas was just unrelentingly himself. The guy who had helped Sam and Dean escape, the guy who Dean had crushed on. Crushed on,  _ hard _ . Besides, there was something suspicious about the way Andy and the others seemed to gush around Castiel. The way they were all falling over themselves to find out what he knew, the way they were so happy to have an angel in their midst.

That wasn’t right.

They didn’t know Castiel. They hadn’t spent any time with him. They should have been petrified of him, suspicious at the very least. They shouldn’t have been happy. But they were and every day they sent Castiel out with something new to draw, and every day Dean went with him. They didn’t say much, though occasionally Dean asked what Castiel was drawing. There were sigils to ward demons that he drew on buildings a street away to create a larger space of safety around the hotel and a few that would apparently prevent angels from finding the place even though they were unlikely to bother with such a thing. After that there were salt rings and hex bags to be hidden, the hotel was practically the most secure place on earth.

“What’s that one do?” Dean asked one day, pointing to the hex bag Castiel buried in a small hole he’d dug for that very purpose.

“This one’s for witches,” he said, quietly.

“Witches? They get many of them around here?” Dean frowned, he hadn’t actually met a witch before. Or knew anyone who had. Though apparently there were still a few around. They probably had an easier time integrating than most monsters, so why they would be out here trying to attack psychics was anyone’s guess.

Castiel shrugged, “they want their protections to be quite thorough.”

“You don’t think this is overkill?”

“They’re just trying to protect against all eventualities.”

Dean studied Castiel’s face for a moment, but he genuinely didn’t seem to think it unreasonable that they ward themselves against everything that could conceivably come for them as well as the inconceivable ones.

“I don’t like it,” Dean mumbled, which somehow earned a grin from Castiel.

“It’s fine, Dean.”

“Yeah, yeah. So you say, but they’ve got you out here on your own and-”

“-and it won’t be a problem from now on,” Castiel said, firmly, kicking some dirt over the hole he had filled so it couldn’t be distinguished from the rest of the ground. “That’s it.”

“What’s it?”

“I’m done. That is the extent of my warding knowledge. There is nothing else I can do.”

Dean still wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, well...they better appreciate it.”

Castiel’s hand was warm where it pressed against Dean’s shoulder and for a moment Dean could only stare at it, noting that a few weeks ago such contact would have been enough to have him drawing his nearest blade. Not that it would have done much against an angel.

“Thank you, Dean,” Castiel said, warmly, his voice rich with implication.

Dean shrugged off his hand, “Whatever. C’mon. I don’t wanna miss dinner.”

He should have known something was wrong as soon as the hotel came into sight. Andy and a couple of the others were loitering in front of the entryway. But Dean knew that nobody came out unless they had reason to, they certainly never came out to wait around.

“Hey guys,” Andy called, waving to them. His manner was as cheery as ever, but a lifetime of reading other people meant Dean clocked his nervousness instantly.

“Andy,” he said, levelly, looking past him to the two others. Dean knew one of them as Lily, who largely kept herself to herself. He couldn’t remember the other one’s name but he didn’t like the way he was staring at him.

“So uh...hey, we were thinking, Castiel,” Andy mumbled, ignoring Dean, “and it’s nothing against you, y’know? You’re great and we really appreciate all the help you’ve given us making us secure but...we don’t think this is the place for you.”

Castiel stared at them uncomprehending. “What do you mean?” 

Somehow Dean wasn’t surprised, even though he’d not thought they would stoop this low. Still, it was not until he heard how distant Castiel’s voice sounded that he felt the first stab of fury.

“Well, we just don’t think any good can come of having an angel around. You might draw something towards us, unintentionally of course, but...we’d rather not have that kind of risk.”

“Oh.” Dean saw Castiel visibly deflate as he said again, “ _ Oh _ . I understand. I’ll...I’ll collect my things.”

But the man behind Andy just held a bag out to him, “Already taken care of,” he said, glowering at Castiel, as though he hadn’t spent a week making sure they wouldn’t be torn apart by demons in their sleep.

“Can I at least say goodbye to Meg?” he asked, in a very small voice.

“Sure, she’s on her way,” Andy said, brightly. Too brightly. Dean stepped between them.

“What the hell is this? You’re sending him away? After he’s done everything you’ve asked of him?!”

“Dean,” Cas said, quietly, “It’s alright.”

Dean spun on the spot, glaring at Cas with a fury that wasn’t quite aimed at him. “Bullshit! It’s not alright!”

“What’s going on?”

Dean had never been so relieved to hear Meg’s snarky drawl. Thankfully, she’d had the foresight to bring Sam, or perhaps he’d heard the commotion and followed her down.

Andy opened his mouth to answer her, but Dean cut across him. “Your buddies here wanna kick Cas out. Says it’s too much of a risk.”

Andy at least had the decency to look embarrassed, “Look,” he sighed, “it’s nothing personal, it really isn’t. We’re just not comfortable living with an angel.”

“But you were comfortable enough to use him to keep out anything else, now he’s done that, you’re just gonna kick him out?” Dean snapped, but he could tell that they weren’t going to be moved. It didn’t make him less angry.

For the first time, Lily spoke up. “It’s not all of you, the rest of you can stay, even you Dean, even if you’re not one of us, we don’t mind you. Only the angel has to leave.”

_ The angel _ .

“ _ Fuck. You _ ,” Dean snarled, aware that Cas’ hand was on his arm and Meg was moving to the other side, clearly expecting to have to hold him back. “We’re a package deal, sweetheart, if Cas goes, I go.”

“Dean!” Cas said, firmly, turning Dean to face him. “It’s okay,” he insisted. “You stay, you’ll be safe here, I’ll- I’ll find something to do, don’t worry about me.”

Meg stepped into their little circle, “Wow, you’re really dumb, Clarence,” she sighed, aware that both Dean and Cas were glaring at her in indignation. She turned to Dean as though she didn’t have a care in the world. “You and Sam can do what you want, but I’m going with him.”

“Meg-” Castiel started, his voice a warning, but she shut him up with a look.

“We’re in this together, remember? I’m going with you.”

“Sam,” Dean called rather than asked, but Sam wasn’t where he had been a moment ago. “Sam?”

“He...he went back in,” Andy muttered.

For a moment, a long moment, Dean stared at him uncomprehending. “What?”

“He went back in,” Lily said, with a hint of gloating in her voice, “He chose us.”

Dean didn’t dignify that with a response, instead, he tried to step forward, but Cas was holding onto him too firmly.

“Let me go, Cas,” he said, low, a warning. But Cas didn’t heed it.

“Let him go, Dean,” Meg said, stepping in front of Dean, resting her hands lightly on his chest. “He’s made his choice.”

Dean would have thrown her out of the way but Cas was still holding him. In the back of his mind he dimly noted that his strength was unnatural. “Dean,” Meg said again, forcing him to look at her, “You have to let him go, this isn’t Poughkeepsie.”

That snapped him out of it and he felt Cas’ grip loosen as he relaxed into him. He could see Meg trying to convey something through a look alone and for the first time he cursed himself for not getting to know her well enough that they could at least communicate a little without words. Cas’ hands were still holding him, a grounding presence, even though he still wanted to launch himself at the gathering in front of them, just to wipe their smug looks from their faces.

But, he didn’t. Instead, he let Cas guide him away, out of sight of the hotel, idly wondering how it was that he was the one having to be dragged away.


	10. Chapter 10

They didn’t go far, making camp, or the closest they could get to such a thing in the corner of a house that only had one wall and a fraction of roof remaining to it. Cas got a fire going and threw up some rudimentary wards just in case the demons saw them. Not that they would hold for long, carved into the dirt with little more than a charred stick.

“The hell does Sam think he’s even doing?” Dean grumbled, kicking at the floor, hardly caring that he was scuffing his boots and had no prospect of replacing them if they tore.

Meg gave a huff of impatience and rolled her eyes in a mannerism she must have picked up from Cas. “He’ll be along. He’s just taking care of some things.”

“He should have come with us!”

“And what were you planning to eat, Dean?” Sam called, having the sense to announce his presence before either Cas or Dean noticed someone approaching.

Sam dropped their backpacks down next to the fire and they landed with far greater weight than they had left the sector with. But Dean barely noticed it, scrambling to his feet so he could either hug his brother or punch him. He hadn’t quite decided which yet. In the end, he settled for both, pulling him in for a tight hug before he punched his shoulder a little harsher than he’d intended.

“The hell did you think you were doing?!” Dean snapped, recognising that Cas had moved closer in case he needed to hold him back again.

“Getting our stuff, Dean,” Sam sighed dramatically, with an impressively bitchy bitch face to match. He reached down and unzipped his bag, revealing that he’d packed it full of everything Dean had scavenged in the last few days.

“How did you get out?” Cas asked, caught somewhere between puzzled and impressed, but Sam only shrugged.

“They weren’t that great at keeping watch.”

Dean was looking through the things Sam had packed for him when he paused at first the touch, then the sight of a battered novel.

He glanced up at Sam who just gave him a small smile. “What? I wasn’t about to leave you hanging, you were so close to the end.”

Dean ducked his head back down so his brother wouldn’t see him flush with grateful warmth, but he managed to mumble out, “Bitch.”

Sam kicked him in the shin, lightly, “Jerk,” before settling down next to the fire with Meg.

* * *

They rested for one day and one day only. They were all in agreement that they wanted to put as much distance between themselves and the ‘Special Children’, though Cas pointed out they were in far more danger from the demons that seemed to live in the area. Meg had cuffed him around the head for that.

“That’s not the point, dumbass.”

Cas had wanted to ask what the point was, but she had already moved on and Sam just shrugged at him before they followed. Dean had wanted to go back and destroy the wardings, dig up the hex bags and kick the door down to their stupid hotel, possibly after putting up a sign saying ‘demons welcome’ and he’d been surprised when Meg had agreed fully. Cas talked them out of that, apparently, it would be inappropriate. Dean had grumbled but ultimately allowed himself to be dissuaded. No point putting his own life in danger even if he got to take those jackasses with him.

So instead, they kept walking, though it was a little depressing not knowing where they were heading. In his mind, Dean turned over their options which were dismally limited. They could make for another sector, that would seem to be the most obvious place to go, though they may want to try for one much further out. Long-range communication wasn’t exactly commonplace between any kind of settlements, but they might want to move beyond the potential of rumours following them. As newcomers, they would be treated with a natural suspicion but if anyone were to get wind of their journeys across The Fringes there would be questions for sure.

Besides, Dean wasn’t sure if he wanted to live in a city again, not after the quiet peace, however short-lived, of living with the telepaths, even if they had turned out to be massive dicks. But then, could they manage living in a small community? One where Meg and Sam would be put under a microscope, one that they probably wouldn’t even be allowed to enter. Not a group of four with only one familial relationship among them.

Of course, the obvious answer would be to split up. To go back to their original plan where they found a place in their pairs. They’d managed quite well before they’d ended up together. But...Dean didn’t want to leave them. He’d worry for a start. He’d spend the rest of his life wondering what they were up to if they were okay. And he liked them, even Meg who managed to get on his every nerve sometimes but was generally alright to be around.

What had started as a fairly obvious ploy to keep them safe in travelling together had become unbreakable. None of them had addressed it, none of them had had to, but they’d all been given the chance to live a steady life and they had all turned it down for Cas.

They paused for a break, just a short stop to grab a snack and sit down for a moment. The Fringes were unforgiving, so they took rest where they could find it. Dean watched Cas, without needing words, take up a position where he could watch them all. He watched as Sam and Meg bickered over what would make the best snack and let out a, “ _huh_ ” of surprise. Sam and Meg hadn’t heard it, but in an instant, Cas was by his side.

“What is it?” he asked, looking around as though Dean might have possibly sighted something he’d missed.

But there was nothing to see. Only the strange and unexpected realisation that Sam wasn’t his only family now. He wouldn’t have thought he’d welcome a bratty telepath and an angel, _an angel_ of all things, into the fold. But there it was.

“Nothing,” Dean blushed, waving Cas away. He went, but he threw a sidelong glance at him when he’d returned to his position in the trees and wore such a smile on his face, Dean couldn’t help but wonder if angels were telepathic on some level.

* * *

They walked far longer than was sensible, especially given that they had no heading and had just picked a direction. Anything could have been waiting for them. At one point they passed within earshot of what sounded like a werewolf, but it had obviously scented the air and realised it probably wouldn’t win a four on one fight, so it rustled off into the woods. They finally came across a place to rest, even though Dean had no idea what a ‘Drive-In Theatre’ could possibly have been.

The space was wide, open and looking up at something that might have been a screen once, but had cracked, fractured and mostly fallen down. Still, Dean wasn’t looking at that, he was looking at the cars. He’d read about such things and he’d even seen a couple with his dad one time. Apparently, they could transport you from one place to another, with distance only limited by how tired you were. The idea had always fascinated Dean, the notion that you could just drive away from somewhere, that you wouldn’t have to cross the Fringes, you could just _go_. It was an attractive fantasy; to have that kind of freedom. Normally, Dean would never advocate for resting in an area so open, but as soon as he’d seen the smattering of cars he’d called it.

“Alright, let’s stop here, we’ll carry on in the morning.”

The other three paused and looked at Dean as though he’d gone mad. Well, Cas and Meg did. Sam just rolled his eyes.

“Really, Dean?”

Cas looked over the area and frowned. “This isn’t the easiest of places to secure.”

But Dean was pointing at two of the larger vehicles. “Look at those things, they’re like houses on wheels. That thing’s bigger than most of the places we lived in.”

Meg and Sam looked over at the thing, thoroughly unimpressed, by...well...whatever it was. It looked more like a large box, rusted, grimy, almost totally subsumed by roots that had grown out of the ground and practically strangled it. One of the front windows was smashed and two of its wheels were missing, but Dean just shrugged.

“What? It’s not like we’re gonna drive the thing. It might just be a decent place to stay tonight.”

“He has a point,” Cas said, surprising them all. All eyes turned to him, Dean’s included. “They were called mobile homes, people used to use them for vacations.”

“See?” Dean said, happily, spreading his arms out. “Even Cas agrees.”

Meg turned narrowed eyes on him and drawled, “Do you even know what a vacation is?”

“Nope, come on,” Dean grinned, leading the way over to what was apparently called an ‘RV’, if the faded insignia was anything to go by.

Getting into the long-abandoned vehicle was a little harder than Dean had originally thought, however. The door was rusted to the point it was almost indistinguishable from the rest of the body, but Dean could just about make out the seam.

“Hey, Cas, you got that angel blade of yours?”

“Yes?”

“Can I borrow it?”

Cas looked as though he had just smelled something distasteful, “Why?”

“Just, lemme borrow it, okay?”

It was a strange thing to hold, for a moment Dean was surprised by the weight of it, wondering how on earth Cas wielded it with such finesse. Somehow, it seemed heavier at the tip, but then maybe to an angel it felt different.

Cas visibly winced when Dean started chipping at the rust, “That is not the proper use of an angel blade,” he murmured, sounding pained. But, it worked. With a sound that nothing in working order would ever make, the door fell open, in fact it almost fell off entirely, but none of them seemed to notice, all too surprised by what lay inside.

Clearly, the door had been unopened since before The Tribulation and it bore all the hallmarks of how The Old People used to live. There was furniture, but it was nothing like the wooden creations of the sectors or the scavenged attempts of the lesser villages. These were soft, colourful almost, though time had inevitably faded the brightness. There were books, actual, proper books that weren’t falling apart despite the pages yellowing a little. There were pictures on the walls, pictures of long-forgotten landscapes that probably didn’t exist any more, photographs of people who certainly didn’t exist any more and posters that advertised popular singers instead of racial purity.

Dean was looking at a full-length picture of a man holding a guitar when a scuffle broke out behind him as Sam and Meg pushed each other aside, racing each other for the bed. Cas and Dean both shared a smirk, even more so when they realised there were two beds.

* * *

It was like a time capsule, a glimpse into the past they could only know of in the vaguest possible sense. There were so many screens, Dean wondered what they had all done. There was one that almost covered a wall, there was a smaller, handheld one and then a handful of even smaller, pocket-sized ones. Cas explained what they did but Dean had no idea what the “internet” was and the idea of being able to send messages across the world with no delay was so foreign that in the end, Cas gave up.

They hit the jackpot in a small cupboard when they found food. Most of it had spoiled to the point it had become dust, but there were some tins and a packet of something called ‘twinkies’. Sam pointed out that anything that “survived” The Tribulation and had lasted this long might be edible but could it really be considered fit for human consumption? Dean waved him off and ate two of the twinkies, tucking the box away for later. They were weird and he’d never quite had anything like it, but it was new and edible so into the bag it went.

“Can we just stay here?” Meg called lazily from the bed she had appropriated as her own. They were large enough for one person, one above the other, seemingly built into the wall, but Meg didn’t seem claustrophobic. The blankets might have been a little musty, but she didn’t mind those either, stretching out as much as she could.

“We can stay for tonight,” Cas said, patiently, already holding his hand up in anticipation of her protest. “We don’t know where the nearest clean water source is, the remaining asphalt prevents us from farming and we have no way of securing this place against intruders.”

“Speaking of,” Dean offered, “I’m gonna go check the perimeter.”

From his bunk, Sam snorted, “You just want to look at the cars.”

“ _And_ check the perimeter,” he said, stepping out, not bothering to deny an obvious truth.

He was momentarily dazed from the contrast. The vast ruin he was used to already seemed strange compared to the relative comfort Dean had just left. He sympathised with Meg; it would be a bit squashed with the four of them living in such close proximity, but beds? Actual beds? With _actual_ bedding and chairs that could be sat on comfortably instead of the ‘reclaimed’ furniture, they had to make do with in the sectors. He could get used to that.

He envied The Old People, being able to live in such comfort and move around freely. Their problems would be solved if the thing had wheels...and fuel...and a means of ignition...and a driver who knew what it was he was driving. Dean sighed, well, it was a nice thought at any rate.

Most of the other cars on the lot were in a similar state. Some had submitted to the elements faster than others, overcome by rust to the point that they had started falling apart. There were one or two that had fared a little better, though their tyres were so flat they may as well have been non-existent and there was no chance of them ever running again. They would fall apart like the others eventually, but for now Dean took in every inch of them, appreciating how they might have looked in their prime.

It was a hard thing to imagine, even with them in front of him like this. Still, he was particularly taken by one of the vehicles up front, the only one in the front row of spaces. It was sleeker than the others, a different breed of car entirely…did cars have breeds? Its colours were still visible, black with silver detail, though only in patches. It had a plush interior that looked more comfortable than most of the seats Dean had sat on in his lifetime, even if they were torn and ragged by little more than age alone. He ran a hand over her, wondering at what kind of person had driven her and he was sitting up on the hood when Cas came out and found him.

“You look comfortable.”

Grinning, Dean waved a hand over the lot, “Pretty neat, huh?”

Cas pulled himself up beside Dean, looking up at the cracked screen ahead of them. “People would drive into these places and a movie would be projected onto the screen. They would watch it from the comfort of their cars, it always seemed like an intimate act to me.”

Dean wasn’t entirely sure how to react to that; to the story of the Old People that he didn’t completely understand or the way Cas’ voice had become soft and almost mournful. But, before he could stop himself he heard himself blurt out, “What was the world like?”

It seemed an impertinent question, but Cas clearly didn’t think so. He frowned though, cocking his head to the side to consider Dean. “Could you be more specific? I was present at the creation of the universe and this world has a vast and storied history.”

“Right, yeah...of course,” Dean snorted, despite himself. “When The Tribulation came, what was the world like?”

Cas leaned back against the cracked windscreen and closed his eyes. He was quiet for a long time, so long that Dean wondered if he was simply ignoring the question. Eventually, sometime after Dean had almost forgotten he had asked the question he said, “Busy. It was busy.” Cas said, “Humans didn’t seem to have enough hours in the day to do everything they wanted. Most were overworked and underpaid, few had the opportunity to pursue their own interests, fewer still could make a living from them. There was a great deal of intolerance and bigotry, monsters were not as prevalent as they are today but still a nuisance. The hunters kept them in check for the most part, few of the Old People actually knew of their existence.”

“Huh,” Dean murmured, “I always thought monsters were a side effect of The Tribulation. All part of the ‘humans got too full of themselves and mocked God” package deal.”

“The Tribulation had nothing to do with God. Actually, it had very little to do with humans,” Cas added, casually.

Dean almost fell off the car.

Cas caught him and held him steady. “Dean? are you alright?” he asked, as though he hadn’t just disputed the doctrine that had been drilled into Dean and every other person since The Tribulation. The very reason anyone who deviated from “the Norm” was exiled or worse.

“So...none of this,” Dean waved his hand at the general state of...things, “None of this had anything to do with humans pissing off God?”

“Humanity may have incurred His wrath, but He certainly never acted upon it. He hasn’t been around for a long, long time. The Tribulation...it wasn’t even called that at the time, we called it The Apocalypse. The End of Days. Angels and Demons went to war and earth was the battleground.” Cas sighed, as though the very memories weighed him down. “I didn’t want to fight. Well- I mean, I _did_ want to fight, I did my duty, but I always thought the humans deserved more than to be collateral damage in a war that barely concerned them. Granted, having the Devil loose on the earth wasn’t ideal, but I’ve always found it somewhat ironic that we managed to do more damage to the world than the one called ‘The Destroyer.’” He gave a humourless chuckle, “I learned later, much later, that the host of heaven, the ones who were supposed to guard humanity, they had gotten bored of their charge and instigated the apocalypse to usher in paradise. I tried to stop it, but...by that time most of the damage had already been done.”

“Wait,” Dean said, turning to face Cas, “You’re telling me, you tried to stop the _end of the world_?”

“I didn’t do very well at it,” Castiel said, dryly. “I tried to get others onside but...nobody would listen. I was...” he sucked in a harsh breath that seemed to rattle around them, “I was forced to kill a number of my brothers. In the end they declared me a renegade, I was hunted by both demons and angels until some humans trapped me and took me away for their own purposes. Even in those days there were facilities to study the creatures destroying the planet, they were primitive but...they were well warded.”

Dean swallowed, but his throat seemed dry. When he spoke, his voice sounded a little raspier than usual. “And...what happened with the war? I mean, obviously the world didn’t end. I mean, we’re still here, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know what happened. There was to be a mighty battle between Lucifer, the Morning Star and Michael, the Prince of the Host, but I don’t know what became of it. The two of them vanished, nobody knows how or why and without their leader the angels just...they just shut themselves away. Heaven has been sealed ever since.”

“You ever try to get back in?”

Castiel stared at some distant point, far across the sky, as though he were attempting to get back in right then.

“Once,” he muttered, “but...the powers that controlled heaven were those I had criticised and they made it quite clear I was unwelcome. They tried to have me executed, but I escaped and so long as I don’t draw too much attention to myself I can exist beneath their notice. I had to ward myself and I can’t make use of my powers as much as would be helpful, but...” he trailed off into a silence that spoke of pain Dean could never have understood. However much he wanted to. He shook his head, as though he could clear his mind of an eternity of thoughts. “The Tribulation is simply the rhetoric of the survivors. I’d say it was simply a matter of intolerance, and to an extent it was, but the world was ravaged and they were hunted by monsters that they hadn’t even known existed. I suppose it would be only natural they would shun anything different. I’ve tried to blend in as best I could try to help as much as I can...it’s a poor offer in return for the devastation I helped wrought.”

“Didn’t you just say you tried to stop it?”

Castiel gave a sharp huff through his nose, “Too little, too late. The damage was done.”

“Hey,” Dean tapped his arm, a little harsher than intended, determined to get his attention. “You tried, okay? You thought you were doing the right thing and when you found out it wasn’t, you tried to stop it. That counts for something. How many other angels spoke up?”

“None that I know of. But then, if anyone did they would have been executed so I wouldn’t know their names.”

“I bet they all knew your name.”

With a small smirk, Castiel turned to meet Dean’s eye, “only because I didn’t die when they wanted me to.”

“Look man, I know I’ve not known you long, hardly anything given that you’re...y’know, like a billion years old-”

“Give or take,” Cas said, unable to stop a smile from spreading across his lips, a definite twinkle in his eyes.

“But you’ve helped me, Sam, you even helped those dickhead psychics and I’m pretty sure Meg wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. And that’s just what I’ve seen so...what I’m saying is...” Dean scrubbed the back of his neck, nervously, regretting that he’d somehow ended up discussing feelings of all things. “...you’re alright. You’re not like the other angels.”

Castiel quirked an eyebrow, “Do you know any other angels?”

“No, they locked themselves away in paradise after trying to destroy the world,” Dean said, pointedly. “I mean it, I’m...I’m glad you’re here with us. I shouldn’t have freaked out over the whole angel thing.”

“You had cause.”

“Maybe, but I’m glad you stuck by me anyway.”

Cas smiled softly, “Dean, it was you who stuck by me, in spite of the “whole angel thing”.”

“Did you just air quote me?”

Castiel just smiled, “Thank you, Dean. You are a remarkable man who continues to astound me.”

“Oh. I...uh...” Dean stuttered, not knowing how to respond to such a direct complement.

“We should head back,” Castiel noted, holding his hand out to help Dean off the hood.

“Yeah, sure,” Dean said, still stumbling over his words and his feet too as he landed awkwardly beside Cas. Cas didn’t seem to mind though, righting him as though it were natural. He held Dean’s gaze for a moment and Dean recognised something there, something that looked like relief, a sparkle that showed a great weight had been lifted. Dean hadn’t known how to respond to a compliment, but he was totally at a loss at how to respond when, as quick as a flash, Castiel pressed his lips to Dean’s cheek. By the time Dean realised what had happened, Castiel was already halfway back to the RV. 

Almost involuntarily, Dean’s fingers went to his cheek, touching where Cas had kissed him.

Cas had kissed him.

_Cas had kissed him._

He jogged across the lot to catch up, but Cas had already gone in and was chatting to Sam when Dean arrived. Still, he glanced over at Dean far more than usual and every time he did, Dean couldn’t help but smile back.


	11. Chapter 11

Cas had kissed Dean.

They stayed in the lot for an extra day, for no other reason than it was comfortable and they had no real impetus to move on. Not without a destination in mind.

“So...where  _ are _ we going?” Sam asked on the second day. He’d found a tourist map in one of the drawers, the points of interest were long outdated of course and there was no chance of them stopping off at ‘Marge’s Grill-House and Bar’ much to Dean’s dismay, but the terrain would be more or less the same, and they could at least mark out places that might have some surviving shelter. They learned they were in the state of Kansas for whatever that was worth. Such distinctions had been long since lost. They weren’t too far from Nebraska, which again, meant very little.

“I guess we...we could wander?” Meg offered, a little hesitantly. It struck Dean that he had never seen her indecisive before.

“You don’t think it’s worth trying to find somewhere to settle? Some village or something?” Sam asked, knowing from experience that the chances of finding somewhere they could settle that hadn’t already been claimed were slim, to say the least.

Meg snorted, back on familiar territory, “Yeah, sure, ‘coz that worked out so well for us so far.”

“So you guys wanna stick together?” Dean asked, keeping his eyes deliberately off Cas. Not because he didn’t want to look at him but because he had this habit of blushing whenever Cas caught his eye and that probably wouldn’t help the conversation they were apparently having.

It was hard enough not to blush when he felt Cas’ eyes fall on him anyway. He could see it out of the corner of his eye.

Cas had kissed him.

“Oh,” Cas breathed, a tinge of disappointment creeping into his voice. “Meg, we shouldn’t have presumed,” he added, “Sam and Dean may want to head off on their own. I’m sorry Dean, you are of course under no obligation to remain with us.”

Sam shot Dean a look that was positively alarmed and despite everything, Dean found himself looking right at Cas.

Cas who had kissed him.

“Hey, no, we’re not going anywhere!”

Cas looked a little surprised but it faded quickly, “Oh, I see, I didn’t think this was a particularly defensible location, but that is for you to decide,” he said, looking around the RV curiously.

“What? No, no that’s not what I,” Dean rubbed his eyes, exasperated, “I meant, I’m pretty sure Sam and I are happy to stick with you guys, if you’re okay with that?”

Cas’ face lit up, as though Dean had presented him with whatever it was angels most wanted in life. The two of them stared at each other for a while, sharing a smile before Meg called over them, “Hey, if we stick together can you two bone already and quit with the eye thing?”

From the corner of the room, Sam started choking on little more than air, “Meg?!”

“What?! I’m just saying! I don’t mind hanging out with you guys but they’ve  _ got _ to get over this will they won’t they thing going on.”

Looking between them, Sam obviously expected Dean, Cas or both to deny it. Instead, they both blushed and looked anywhere except each other. Eventually, Dean glanced up and caught Cas’ eye and they both shared a secret smile.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Cas murmured and if it was entirely possible Dean flushed an even deeper shade of red.

He cleared his throat, awkwardly, “Anyway, so...you guys wanna just see what we can find? Wandering the Fringes isn’t exactly ideal, but maybe we’ll find somewhere we can stick around?”

Nobody answered, just looking between each other. It wasn’t ideal, it wasn’t even a good idea, but Meg had been right, with their track record the idea of waltzing into an existing community didn’t seem appealing any more.

Eventually, Cas spoke, turning the tourist map around to face him. “I suggest we make for one of these existing settlements and take our cues from the other psychics. It’ll be easier to fortify an existing building than construct one ourselves.”

Sam looked as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite form the words. He was regarding Cas curiously, the gears of his mind visibly working to ask him something. Still, Dean wasn’t expecting him to just blurt out, “Can’t you just fly us somewhere?”

“ _ Sam! _ ” Meg and Dean barked in unison, equally scandalised, but Cas seemed entirely nonplussed.

Turning to Dean and Meg he gave a small shrug, “It’s a valid question. But, no Sam, I don’t think that’s wise. I have warded myself against anything that could track me, but it would do me no good to attract attention.” He looked back at the map, “Given our approximate location, I suggest we head West...” he squinted at the map, “...towards Lebanon. It seemed to be a small town, it might have been overlooked and spared the worst of the Tribulation.”

Dean glanced over at the map, but it all meant very little to him. “Lebanon it is, I guess.”

Cas shot him a grateful smile, though it seemed unwarranted given that Dean had simply agreed with him.

“Alright fine, but we’re staying here one more night, I wanna get the most out of this bed,” Meg grumbled.

“Fine by us,” Dean shrugged, checking his pockets to make sure he had everything he needed to check the perimeter.

Cas had kissed him.

* * *

They had been walking for about two days when they came across signs of life in The Fringes. Dean poked the corpse with a stick, rolling it over so he could get a better look at it. It wasn’t particularly fresh, maybe a week or so, but its skin seemed impossibly tight around its bones.

“Vampires,” Cas said, gruffly, looking around the clearing as though a nest was about to descend upon them.

“Looks like they’ve moved on,” Dean muttered, “but they might still be close. We should find somewhere to camp out, don’t want to give them the benefit of twilight.”

“I saw a gas station back there,” Sam pointed out, “It wasn’t up to much-”

“It’ll do,” Dean said, shortly, “C’mon, let’s get out of the open.”

The four of them backtracked in tense silence. They fell into a natural formation where Dean took up the lead at Sam’s direction and Cas lingered behind, his eyes impossibly everywhere, securing every conceivable angle. It didn’t take them long to come across the gas station Sam had been talking about. At first, Dean had wondered how he’d been able to recognise such a thing but the sign, high above the ground and so surprisingly well preserved clearly said ‘Gas N Sip’ so that solved that particular mystery fairly quickly.

Sam had been right though, it wasn’t up to much. The centuries had not been kind to it, but at least the shell of the building survived, even if the inside had been stripped bare, looted by long-dead scavengers and the elements had taken care of the rest. But it was fortifiable. It would do for one night.

“Alright,” Dean muttered, having given the place a once over, which had taken all of thirty seconds and could have been done without him even moving all that much. He gestured to the only thing that might be considered a room. There was hardly anything in it; some small piles of rotten wood, fabric that had become so damp and mouldy nobody was quite prepared to touch them to see if they could serve as coverings, however sparse. “You guys wait in here, I’ma check things out. Cas, keep an eye in here.”

It occurred to Dean after he had left the three of them behind, that even though Cas had been his superior once upon a time, Dean had fallen naturally into the role of issuing commands. Cas had gone along with it too, even though he was older than existence and had commanded flights of angels. He could have told Dean to shut his mouth and had them all listen to him instead, but he hadn’t.

And he’d kissed Dean.

They still hadn’t addressed that.

Dean gave the place the most thorough going-over of any of the places they had stopped at, but he found no sign of life; vampires or otherwise. That was hardly surprising. Back in the day, vampires had nested, they’d been creatures of habit, staying in the same place and using it as a platform from which to access their feeding grounds. The notion of feeding grounds was long dead, now anything that wanted to hunt in The Fringes had to keep moving.

Something crunched underfoot behind him and Dean spun on his heel, one of his sturdier blades raised against the intruder. But immediately he let his arm drop.

“Jeez, Cas, I could have killed you!”

Cas looked over the blade with a wry arch of an eyebrow. “Not with that you couldn’t.”

“What are you doing out here, anyway, get back in there.”

“They’re fine,” Cas shrugged, “Meg’s trying to get some sleep and Sam’s counting what rations we’ve got left.”

“I’ve still got a few of those twinkies,” Dean offered, but Cas just rolled his eyes.

“ _ Edible _ rations, Dean. Not substances that while technically edible should not have survived the apocalypse.” Castiel gestured to their surroundings. “Anything?”

“Not that I could see.”

Cas nodded, though if Dean had found something, it was unlikely they’d be having this conversation so casually, Dean thought.

“Why did you kiss me?” Dean asked, so suddenly and abruptly it surprised them both. Well...that came out...like that. He almost clapped his hand over his mouth in shock. Sure it had been playing on his mind since it had happened, but he hadn’t expected to blurt it out like that.

Cas had frozen for a moment before his face fell. “Oh...forgive me, I hadn’t thought-”

“No, no, Cas, I don’t mind,” Dean insisted, “I just...I was just wondering why you did it.”

Even though Cas’ face softened a little, he still looked confused. “I thought I’d made my feelings clear and I thought you reciprocated?”

The breath Dean was taking caught in his chest somewhere. “Well...I mean...I do, but...I thought that it might have just been a cover or something. I figure ‘coz you’re an angel you wouldn’t be interested in...y’know...me?” Dean flushed red and looked at the floor, scuffing his boots against the ground.

“Oh...” Cas breathed, “ _ Oh _ ...no Dean, it wasn’t a cover. I understand if you’re no longer attracted to me knowing what I am now, I appreciate that I deceived you somewhat but my feelings for you haven’t changed. I see now it was inappropriate to assume that you were still interested-”

With the hand that wasn’t occupied with a weapon, Dean decided to put an end to their fumbling around each other, and fisting the front of Cas’ shirt, pulled him in for a kiss. It was brief, perfunctory and possibly the chastest kiss Dean had ever shared with anyone, but it saved them stumbling over their words. They were only confusing matters, this was pretty straight forward. They broke apart, but even then Dean only allowed the smallest of spaces between them. He could feel Cas’ breath on his lips and the two of them stared into the other’s eyes before Cas raised his hands to cup Dean’s face and pulled him close again.

He should have known that kissing Cas would be unlike any other kiss Dean had ever shared with anyone. They gave and took in equal measure, Dean’s blade lay forgotten somewhere on the ground as they pulled each other closer, not allowing a breath of space between them. Their lips moved over each other, moulding around the other, one moment soft and gentle, the next harsh and fierce, but there was a spark there. Something that thrummed from where their lips touched that might have been Cas’ grace or it might just have been because they’d been wanting to do this for so long.

“Cas,” Dean mumbled, even as he chased Cas’ lips, unwilling to be parted from him for a second. Cas made a sound that might have been an affirmative question and without breaking apart managed to say, “I’m really glad you kissed me.”

“Mmpf,” Cas agreed, allowing his lips to part so Dean could taste him, his hands tracing up Dean’s arms, trying to gain purchase. 

They both froze when they heard a scream. Dean was still teasing the seam of Cas’ lips and for a moment, though they stopped, they remained exactly where they were. The second scream, one clearly recognisable as Meg had them falling away from each other as though they’d been shocked. Dean just about remembered to grab his blade from where it had fallen as he thundered after Cas, back into the building’s remains.

A vampire, one that had somehow eluded them all, had knocked Meg to the side and had Sam pinned against the opposite wall. Cas hadn’t even faltered in the doorway to take stock of the situation, the angel blade in his hand as he made for the monster.

“Cas!” Dean yelled as the vampire drove its fangs into Sam’s neck, but Cas had already grabbed the creature, pulling it away with a strength that reminded them all how otherworldly he was. As though the world had been slowed down, Dean saw the vampire ripped from Sam, ripped being the word seeing as its teeth had been firmly embedded in Sam’s neck. A spurt of blood gushed from the wound, even though Sam clamped his hand to it relatively quickly. Dean felt the world stop, he already knew that had been too much blood. Sam caught his eye and gave a weak smile even as he stumbled, falling to the floor with a heavy crash.

The vampire was dead before Sam had landed, but Meg called for Cas’ attention, pointing to a hole in the ceiling, a hole that apparently led to an upper space they hadn’t checked where another vampire was already leering at them. But, Dean couldn’t tear his eyes from his brother. He would have liked to have said he’d trusted Cas to have his back as he dropped his knife and ran towards Sam, but that suggested he’d had thought beyond  _ Sam. Blood. Sam! _

It didn’t even look that bad. There was a deep chunk of skin missing from his neck, but it was comparatively small considering the amount of blood that gushed from it. Sam’s hand was still pressed against it and Dean joined his hands, but still, blood seeped through their combined fingers.

“Dean,” Sam rasped, already breathless.

“Ssh,” Dean snapped, tearing off a piece of his shirt to stem the bleeding, but within seconds it was soaked. “Okay, you gotta stay with me Sammy, you hear?”

Meg dropped down next to them, slipping her jacket off to put cushion Sam’s head, her face almost as white as his.

“That’s a lot of blood,” she murmured, moving to run a hand through Sam’s hair which only served to irritate the shit out of Dean. What the hell was she doing, how the hell would that help? Why had he left them alone? Why hadn’t he sent Cas back? Why had Cas not gone back? His brother was dying in his arms because Dean had been too interested in flirting with Cas. Sam had been attacked by a vampire and Dean had missed it because he’d been getting his rocks off with the angel he was crushing on.

He was dimly aware of the thud that announced Cas’ return as he dropped down from the upper level. Dean snapped his eyes up, glaring at him, “This is your fault!” he shouted, desperately, “I told you to go back!”

Cas’ face was unreadable and he made no response to what Dean shouted at him. Dimly, Dean was aware he was being unreasonable, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Sam was trying to say something, his lips were moving but no words were spoken.

“No, no no no no,” Dean breathed, “Sam, you gotta stay with me, yeah? Stay with me.”

Meg’s hand covered Dean’s bloody one, Sam was looking up at her, almost pleading. “He says-”

“I don’t wanna hear it,” Dean snapped at her, “Sam-”

“Dean,” Cas said, calmly, “Let me...”

Cas made to move Dean’s hands away, still pressed uselessly against Sam’s neck, but Dean wouldn’t give an inch.

“Dean,” Cas said again, firmer this time, but still gentle.

Sam was looking at Dean, trying to wrap bloody fingers around his, trying to take his hand. There was a horrible gurgling sound in his throat that Dean didn’t want to think too much about and his eyes started to flutter.

“No-”

“ _ Dean! _ ” Cas outright pushed Dean aside, putting his own hand over Sam’s wound. Dean was on the verge of yelling at him, of screaming and pulling him from his brother, but then there was a glow. Soft at first, where Cas’ hand met Sam’s neck, but it got steadily brighter until it was too bright to look at and both Dean and Meg had to hide their faces, turning away from the glare that burned into them.It did not so much fade as it vanished and when it had, Sam was sitting up looking as well as he ever had. Dean scrambled over to him, all but pushing Cas out the way in his haste, and he grabbed his brothers by the shoulders, looking over every inch of him. The wound was gone, not just faded, totally gone, as though it had never been. The blood was gone too, not just from Sam’s neck but from his shirt too. His hand moved to his neck in wonder, when his hand came away clean he looked up at Dean, confused.

“What the?”

Dean’s eyes were blurred and he rubbed them harshly, pulling his brother into a bear hug that could have broken bones. When he pulled away, Dean smacked him on the arm, harshly. “Don’t do that, don’t ever do that again,” he breathed, but there was only relief in his voice.

When he turned to Cas, it was on shaky legs. “Cas,” Dean breathed, his voice shaking as much as the rest of him, “Cas, I-” but he broke off when he saw that Meg was supporting Cas. His lips were set in a grim line, though the relief in his eyes was evident. “Cas, are you okay?”

Cas opened his mouth to answer, but whatever he was going to say was lost as he pitched forward and had Dean not rushed forward to catch him he would have hit the floor harder than Sam had. “Cas?  _ Cas?! _ ”

Dean turned him over in his arms, but Cas looked the same as he ever did...albeit unconscious. Dean was struck by the sudden notion he’d never seen Cas asleep, why would he, the angel didn’t  _ need _ to rest and the idea that he was now completely out of it settled like a cold chill in his gut. He barely seemed to be breathing, did angels breathe? Did he need to? How did Dean not know these basic things? He looked up at Meg, “What’s the matter with him?”

Meg looked shaken, even her voice sounded reedy, a far cry from the woman who could give all of them a tongue lashing before breakfast. “He doesn’t have the power of heaven behind him any more. He can’t just do these things any more.” She sighed but it came out like a frustrated groan.

It was like having whiplash, Sam had gone from dying to fine and Cas had gone from fine to...well...however he was right now.

“Will he be alright?” Dean asked. Cas was so heavy in his arms, they’d just been kissing outside and now this.

He expected Meg to laugh but she didn’t. “We should probably move him. He’s always worried that the others would find him if he used his grace.”

Dean wasn’t even entirely sure what grace was. He knew so little of the man in his arms, of the man who had saved his brother’s life and not completely for the first time.

‘ _ This is your fault. _ ’

Dean looked up at Sam, still a little giddy that he was alright. “Are you okay?”

Nodding, Sam looked as shocked as he had when Cas had revived him, as though he couldn’t quite believe that he was in one piece. “Yeah, Dean. Yeah, I’m...I’m fine.”

“Good, I’m gonna need you and Meg to take point.”

The two of them looked at him and Sam asked, “Us? You want  _ us _ to take point?”

It had always been Dean or Cas to take point. Sam and Meg were the ones they were protecting. Dean stood up, hoisting Cas across his shoulders.

“We don’t have a choice. I’m not leaving him behind. C’mon, grab his blade, we’ll find somewhere to hole up.”

Meg picked up the angel blade that had long since fallen to the floor, a great deal more confident with it than Dean would have expected, even though her face was still pale and she looked at Cas with undisguised worry.

“He’s going to be alright,” Dean told her, firmly. He let them go ahead of him, and followed, surprised at how easy it was to carry such a heavy weight. “You hear that Cas?” he whispered, “You’re going to be alright.”


	12. Chapter 12

They made it to Lebanon after all. A signpost still remained to announce the fact though the ‘L’ and one of the ‘N’s had long since fallen from it. It reminded Dean of the places they’d lived when he was a child and they still had their dad to cart them around. Some of the smaller towns had survived better than most, abandoned and left to the elements rather than destroyed in a cataclysmic battle. There were still streets. They weren’t up to much, ruined, crumbling things that had been haphazardly rebuilt and allowed to fall again and again. The town must have hosted more than one community over the centuries, but all would have died out or moved on for whatever reason. It might have been a decent place to attempt to settle, if they didn’t know for sure there were vampires in the area.

Still, it would do for now. They made camp inside what had been a post office according to the signs on the walls. At one point it must have served as a communal dorm, if the large collection of hastily constructed beds were anything to go by. They weren’t much, but when Dean lowered Cas onto one of the cleaner looking ones, he was just glad to get the weight off his back, almost collapsing down with him.

“Alright,” he muttered, exhausted beyond belief. “I’ll go secure the-”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Sam said, firmly.

Dean scrubbed his hand over his face as though it might wake him up. “Sam-” he started, not even bothering to keep the warning out of his tone.

He wasn’t expecting Sam to snap back. “Dean. You’re staying here. Meg and I will-”

“Will what? You guys gonna take on vampires and anything else that comes bursting through that door?”

“Yeah, dumbass,” Meg drawled, slipping Cas’ angel blade into her pocket, “We might not be as good at it as you two, and sure the vamps got the drop on us, but I think we can handle one street if we’re smart. We won’t go far.”

Dean was hardly reassured. He was also exhausted. His back, shoulders, legs, hell just about everything ached from carrying Cas. And they hadn’t seen anything on the way in. Sam wasn’t as good in a fight as Dean, but he’d still been trained by John Winchester, he still knew how to gank a monster. It would probably be safer to let the two of them go than have Dean out there on his own in his current state.

“Alright,” he grumbled, irritated when both Sam and Meg let out a joint sigh of relief. “Just...watch yourselves.”

Meg looked like she was on the verge of saying something sarcastic, but Sam silenced her with a look. Or maybe he said something in her head. Either way, the effect was the same. Sam put a hand on Dean’s shoulder and whispered something that might have been thanks, might have been him telling his brother to relax. Whatever it was, Dean barely heard it, he was already falling onto the mattress beside Cas. By the time Meg and Sam were ready to leave, he was fast asleep.

* * *

When Dean woke up, he was surprised to find himself rested, properly rested, too tired for even his subconscious to worry. Either Meg or Sam, probably Sam, had dug out the better of what few blankets they’d packed and draped it over him...him and Cas. Because when Dean woke up it was Cas beside him, though he looked the same as he had when Dean had lain him down. If it weren’t so concerning that he hadn’t stirred, Dean had to admit it would have been nice.

The sound of quiet laughter drew his attention and he was relieved to find Meg and Sam setting up two more beds, as best they could with what was to hand. They were at least trying to be quiet about it, and they’d gotten a fire going, so their little trip outside must have been at least a little successful. They’d even rigged up something that looked like a miniature spit and something was roasting away on it. It smelled good.

“We didn’t wake you, did we?” Sam asked, realising Dean was awake.

Dean rubbed the sleep from his eyes, “Nah, what time is it?”

“You’ve been out for a few hours. Meg and I weren’t gone long, we found a rabbit!” he added, excitedly.

Dean didn’t pretend he wasn’t impressed. “You run into anything out there?”

“A vampire,” Meg said, so abruptly that Dean thought she was joking at first.

“Wait...wait, you’re serious?”

“Yup,” Sam grinned. “Meg saw it and between us, we got the drop on it. Then we saw the rabbits, all in all, not a bad day.”

Immediately panic rose up in Dean’s chest, even though they’d clearly come through it without a scratch, which is probably more than what Dean could have managed as tired as he had been.

“ _ And,”  _ Sam added with emphasis, clearly enjoying himself. “We found a settlement just the other side of town.”

“What kind of settlement?”

“The usual, just a load of ‘deviants’ trying to make their way. There’s only a handful of them, hunters mostly, but they seem nice. They’re not quite ready to let us in yet though, we didn’t get a look in their camp.”

Dean thought for a moment, such things weren’t uncommon and he’d rather have hunters nearby than anyone else. At least if Sam or Meg ran into trouble, there was another avenue of help nearby. They might not be prepared to welcome strangers into their home, which was probably how they’d survived so long, but they probably wouldn’t leave them to be picked off by monsters.

“The vamps don’t give them much trouble?”

Sam gave a small shrug, “Apparently they’ve not been long in the area. They weren’t sure where they were coming from so they were real pleased when we told them Cas had cleared out the ones in the gas station. We gave them one of the rabbits, they said the hunting’s not so bad out here.”

Dean took it all in, looking for a catch in his mind’s eye. This was too good. Then his eyes fell on Cas, still unconscious beside him and there it was. “Is he alright?” he asked the room at large, though it was clear he was addressing Meg. She was the only one who could answer after all.

She moved over to them and placed a hand on Cas’ forehead, though what difference it made Dean had no idea. “He should wake up,” she sighed, “I’ve seen him like this once before...can’t remember what I’d done but it took him a few days to get over it, I guess this is just one of those times? Sam was pretty banged up,” she added, softly. It wasn’t like Meg to be gentle, but at moments like these Dean could see the genuine affection she held for the angel.

Dean looked around them, “So...does he need food? Water?”

“Maybe a little when he wakes up, but there’s nothing we can do for him now, just keep him safe.”

“Alright,” Dean grunted, rising from the bed and pulling the blankets over Cas. It probably wouldn’t help, did angels feel the cold? Could they feel warmth? But it made Dean feel a little better to be doing something, anything, however minor or irrelevant for him. He joined Sam and Meg around the fire, though he was sure to sit where he could see Cas. It didn’t feel right to turn his back on him. Meg did the same, glancing up constantly, the worry evident the crease of her frown.

“Hey,” Dean called, gently, “He’ll be okay, yeah?” It was probably his turn to give out the reassurances.

Meg nodded, grimly, “I know, I just hate seeing him like this.”

“Huh, you do have a heart,” Dean grinned but Meg rolled her eyes at him.

“Yeah, weird how I might be concerned about the guy who’s had my back since I was a kid. Just remember you guys are the newbies to us, it’s been him and me against the world for years.”

Dean had the distinct impression he’d been told off. Well, he had been really. For a moment he didn’t know what to say, but Sam distracted them all by burning his hand trying to get the rabbit off the spit. It was a struggle of epic proportions but he managed it.

“Don’t help or anything guys,” he scoffed, trying to tear it into equal chunks and making a total mess of it.

It wasn’t like Dean and Meg to share a moment, but they exchanged an amused glance and Meg smirked, “But you’re doing so well at it.” Sam all but threw Meg’s share at her, but to his annoyance, she caught it with way more flair than he’d cooked it.

Dean didn’t try to hide his snort, which of course meant he totally missed his share of meat when Sam threw it at him.

“Jerk,” Sam muttered, grinning a little too triumphantly, while they settled into a silence that was only a little awkward. After all, Sam and Meg were always in each other’s heads and Dean had hung with Cas. He couldn’t help but feel he was intruding a little.

“So what’s it been like hiding your shit with an angel?” Dean asked, trying and failing to think of a way to ask the question less bluntly than he wanted to.

But Meg didn’t seem bothered by it. In fact, she seemed to actually consider her response. “I don’t think it’s been all that different to you guys hiding the way you have. You just sort of blend in and it’s fairly easy for him to do that...people expect to find monsters, they never expect angels.”

“Is Cas the only angel you’ve seen?” Sam asked, which surprised Dean. He’d imagined they’d already talked about this sort of thing. It hadn’t occurred to him Sam would still have questions for Meg.

“I’ve seen three. The two that tried to take him when we escaped from the facility they were holding us in, the one we met at,” she added, clearly for Dean’s benefit, “and one who found us after he’d flown us somewhere.”

“What happened to them?” Sam asked, quietly. “They go back to heaven?”

Meg looked at Sam as though he had said something particularly dumb. “If angels go to heaven when they die then yeah, sure.” It was clear Sam wasn’t sure what she was getting at so she added, grimly, “Clarence stabbed them in the face with the angel blade.”

But Dean was stuck on something else she’d said.

“Wait...hang on...you said the facility they were holding you at?”

“Yeah?”

“Both of you?” Dean asked.

“No, the powers that be just loved having an angel around and didn’t experiment on him at all. Yes, both of us. They threw me in with him, seeing as they didn’t know what I was and his cell was the warded one.”

Dean looked over at Cas, he still hadn’t moved of course, but Dean couldn’t help but hope.

“This mean you’re going to quit giving him a hard time over the whole angel thing?” Meg asked, shooting Dean a glare he felt was a little unfair.

“That was just...I was just...”

“Yeah, yeah,” Meg waved him away, “Look, he’s saved your life how many times now? And he’s practically brought Sam back from the dead. You gonna let all that stuff go?” Dean frowned, he thought he had, but Meg didn’t look convinced. “ _ This is all your fault _ ,” she reminded him, parroting Dean’s desperate tone when he thought Sam had been dying, which was a little below the belt. “I’m just saying, if you’re not going to start treating him right, you can clear off before he wakes up and we’ll take our chances without you.”

Dean was well aware that he looked a little like a goldfish. Every time he opened his mouth to say something he closed it again, not sure how to defend himself against a self-righteous Meg.

“Dean was just-”

But Meg didn’t want to hear any of Sam’s defence, waving him off. “Yeah I know and every time ‘ _ Dean was just _ ’ Clarence gets hurt. I’m not sorry he saved your life, Sam, but if either of you gives him shit when he wakes up-”

“We won’t,” Dean said, firmly. “I was wrong, but that’s over now. I just want him to wake up, happy?”

From the look Meg gave him it didn’t appear as though she would ever actually be happy, but she seemed content at least. “Good,” she said, as abrasively as she’d said anything else. But Dean couldn’t blame her. He had, after all, given Cas a hard time in the past, even though the guy did nothing but good by them. Besides, if the situation were reversed, he knew he’d be grilling Meg just as much if she’d hurt Sam.

* * *

After a week, Cas still hadn’t stirred. Meg remained rather calm about it all while Dean couldn’t help but worry. Sam seemed happy to accept Meg’s judgement, and deep down Dean knew he should too, but there was something unnatural about the way Cas just lay there. Utterly unmoving, barely breathing. He didn’t want to leave him, not even with Meg. The guilt of his accusations, when all Cas had done was help, gnawed at him. If Cas didn’t wake up… if he was like this forever… he’d have fallen thinking Dean hated him, with the last words he heard those of anger.

Lebanon seemed safe though. Safe enough that Dean didn’t worry too much about staying by Cas’ side and letting Meg and Sam go outside. It wasn’t ideal, but he wanted to be there when Cas woke up. 

_ If _ Cas woke up. 

Besides, the two of them were enjoying the additional freedom, however slight, and had started making friends with the hunters at the other camp. Dean had met one of them, a deaf girl by the name of Eileen who had Sam tied up in knots every time she visited. She hadn’t asked any questions about Cas, but brought what little medicine she could spare, mostly herbal remedies, just in case. They wouldn’t help but the thought was nice. Dean liked her immensely and not just because he and Meg could tease Sam mercilessly over her.

He hadn’t met the others but he’d heard good things. There were Jesse and Cesar whose only crime had been falling in love with each other and then there was Garth and his wife, Bess, who sounded...well...different even in a world of different. Not that long ago Dean might have freaked out to learn that the two of them were werewolves, but then...he was sitting at the bedside of an angel, nursing him with little more than willpower alone, so who was he to judge?

When Dean had been a boy and John Winchester still around, they’d stayed at a village where a man had been laid up, much like Cas was, though probably without the whole angelic grace thing. He remembered the man’s wife sitting with him and talking to him, his dad had said that talking to them could help bring them around. They had left before they could see whether it had done any good or not, they’d never gone back so Dean didn’t even know if the man had ever regained consciousness. Even if he had, it’s not like it could help Cas, but it didn’t stop Dean from doing it anyway.

He told him all manner of stories about his childhood, all the things they’d hunted but it wasn’t bravado, it was just the easiest thing Dean could think to tell. At least when Sam and Meg were around. When they weren’t, Dean would whisper his apologies and ask, well... _ beg _ … Cas to wake up. Night would find him inevitably beside the angel. If Sam or Meg had asked he would have said it was because the bed was comfortable and one of the few capable of supporting two people. Besides, Dean was, if nothing else, a creature of habit and he had fallen asleep next to Cas that first night so he would likely fall asleep there until Cas woke up.

They didn’t ask but that wasn’t the point. They didn’t even tease him about it. Still, Dean was careful to keep the conversation limited to general topics when the others were around. He’d gotten as far as Dean’s first day as a guard, the day he and Cas had met, when he realised that Sam and Meg were talking in hushed whispers as they prepared dinner.

“Don’t let me forget where I was, alright?” Dean muttered, patting Cas’ hand gently. “Hey,” he called over, “What’s up with you guys?”

Sam and Meg exchanged a look before Sam glanced up. “We’re almost out of food.”

Dean sighed, running a hand over his face. He wasn’t particularly surprised, but it was still a pain.

“We’ve been sharing some of what we took from the hotel with the hunters, they’ve given us some meat these last couple of days but they’re running low too.”

“Alright, guess I’ll see what I can find tomorrow.”

“Actually-” Sam started, in his ‘I’m about to say something Dean’s going to hate’ tone, “I thought Eileen, Meg and I could go.”

“Sam-”

“No, Dean, listen. Eileen’s going anyway, she doesn’t need an escort, she can handle just about anything and we...” he glanced over at Meg, who had surprisingly little to say on the matter, “We’re not kids anymore and if we’re going to be living out here then we’re going to have to learn. Better to send us out with a hunter who knows what they’re doing. Besides, Meg and I work great together.”

“There are some advantages of not having to speak aloud,” Meg added.

“You  _ want _ to go out on your own?” Dean asked her.

“Not particularly,” she sighed, “but...” her eyes flickered to Cas, “we need to pull our weight and we need to be able to defend ourselves. If our stop at the Gas ‘N’ Sip taught us anything it’s that you can’t keep an eye on us twenty-four-seven and we’re no good to anyone if we can’t at least ice one vamp.”

Dean considered his response, though he knew that both of them were expecting him to outright refuse. Which is what he wanted to do. But...they had a point. And it’s not as though the two of them were utterly defenceless, Sam knew how to take on most things he just hadn’t had cause to, Dean had tried to keep him from that. He couldn’t speak for Meg but it was clear she knew how to handle herself. The vamp thing wasn’t either of their faults, even Dean could be caught by surprise and he knew Cas could too.

“Alright,” he muttered.

Sam, having expected him to disagree, had already launched into a counter-argument. “The thing is Dean, we need to know these things and it’s likely the worst we’ll run into is a vampire which the two of us can handle, Eileen’s a bonus, but she-”

“I said,  _ alright, _ Sammy,” Dean called, trying not to laugh at the look on his brother’s face. “You’re right. Cas and I want to keep you both safe, but the best way to do that is to teach you how to defend yourselves. If Eileen thinks there’s nothing worse than vamps out there, I trust her, she knows the terrain and you can go with her.  _ But! _ ” he added before the two of them could start congratulating each other. “You watch each other’s backs and you don’t go off on your own. I mean it,” he said, in as stern a voice as he’d ever used, aware that he sounded like a long-suffering father. “If Eileen can’t head out with you then I will, or Cas will once he’s up. I trust you guys to take care of yourselves, but don’t go tempting fate.”

Meg and Sam looked so excited, for a moment it was easy to forget that they weren’t actually children.

“Can we...can we go tell Eileen?” Sam asked, already itching to get to the door.

Dean nodded, unable to hide his smile, “Go on, both of you, but make sure you bring back something for dinner.”

The two of them practically fell over each other in their haste to find their friend, while Dean sat back and laughed. His laughter trailed off to a soft chuckle when he leaned back into the chair he’d managed to repair. “The kids are growing up, Cas,” he muttered, fondly, “Now...where was I?”

“I believe,” Cas rasped from the bed, his eyes flickering open just the smallest amount, “you were about to tell me about the day we met.”


	13. Chapter 13

_ "Cas _ ,” Dean breathed, taking Cas’ hand and holding it tight. “You’re alright!”

Cas coughed a little and Dean was careful not to overwhelm him. He struggled to keep his eyes open but managed it just long enough to smile at Dean. “Sam...” he whispered, “Is Sam alright?”

The swell of happiness rising within Dean faltered a little, all this and Cas’ first thought was about Sam. “He’s fine, Cas,” Dean assured him, feeling a little guilty but it didn’t come close to the sheer joy that Cas was alright. “He’s fine, you saved his life.”

Cas seemed to sink into the bed with the sigh that escaped him. “I’m glad,” he murmured, looking as though he was trying to get comfortable.

Instantly, Dean was on his feet, trying to plump up the various scraps he’d laid for Cas to sleep on. “Forgive me, Dean,” he sighed, “Could you...would you be willing...” he couldn’t quite seem to get the right words out, though it wasn’t because he was struggling to speak. “I found I was a great deal more comfortable when I was resting on you.”

Dean’s mouth fell open, landing somewhere on the floor. “Wait...you were awake for all of that?”

“I have been in a state of semi-consciousness, yes. If you’re uncomfortable-” Cas started, but Dean was already moving to lie beside him. He adjusted himself a little, but it was hard on such a flimsy excuse for a bed. Still, he felt infinitely better when Cas allowed himself to be pulled onto Dean’s chest. Cas sighed into it, “Thank you, this is much better.”

Dean lay there, stroking Cas’ hair, listening to Cas’ breathing even out. “Are you asleep?” Dean whispered after a while.

“I don’t sleep,” Cas murmured, though his eyes remained closed. “I’m simply resting.”

“Resting, right...Cas, I-”

“I know. You have apologised at great length, but you didn’t need to,” Cas’ voice was quieter than Dean had ever known it, “You were upset, Sam was injured, your anger was understandable. You lashed out, I don’t hold it against you.”

“No Cas, I keep lashing out at you when all you’ve done is help and be...well...great. So I’m sorry and I’ll do better, I promise.”

Cas made something that might have been an agreement, might have been chastising him, but Dean didn’t push it. Instead, he just let his fingers trail through Cas’ hair, holding him close and revelling in his warmth.

* * *

Dean had at least rolled out from under Cas by the time Meg and Sam returned. He’d put his backpack behind Cas’ head so he could sit up a little.

When Meg saw him she all but squealed his name and ran over to him, taking one of his hands in both of hers. Sam and Dean hung back. Though he’d never admit it, Dean was actually quite touched by the obvious affection, even when Meg punched him, harshly, against his arm. Cas winced, “What was that for?”

“I told you last time, don’t do that to me!” she snapped.

Cas chuckled, even though the blow clearly smarted. “My apologies. I was trying to save Sam’s life.”

Meg rolled her eyes but looked over at Sam, “Meh. I suppose he’s not all bad.”

“Thank you, Cas,” Sam said, but Cas was already waving him off as best he could.

Meg caught his arm before it hit the bed. “You need to rest.”

“I  _ am _ resting,” Cas assured her, “I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

“No. You don’t. So, Dean’s going to look after you seeing as he can’t bear to be parted from you,” Meg drawled, “Sam and I are going to forage tomorrow.”

It was a sign of how debilitated Cas was that his face reacted but his body remained lying where it did. “Yes, I heard. I am forced to agree with Dean, though I would prefer to go with you.”

“Well sure thing, Clarence,” Meg beamed, “We’ll take you with us and you can crawl at the vamps until they die.”

“I’d point out that even in this state a vampire would be harder pushed to kill me than you.”

“Yeah yeah, we get it, you’re a big scary angel that would strike fear into the hearts of mortal men et cetera, et cetera. Now take your nap,” she chuckled, leaving Cas to grumble that he didn’t need a nap. Still, Dean took the pack away from under his head so he could lie down again.

* * *

Sam and Meg left with Eileen in the morning. Meg took Cas’ blade and Dean considered sending Sam off with the demon knife but that felt a little bit too much like preparing for the worst. The angel blade could dispatch anything they ran into and Eileen knew the roads, assuring them they weren’t going far enough to meet anything dangerous. There was apparently a small colony of “mutants” within a few kilometres but they didn’t bother the hunters so the hunters didn’t bother them. She assured Dean they’d be back by sundown at the latest. There were some wild fruit trees nearby and if they were lucky they’d find some squirrels. Maybe another rabbit.

Cas was at least able to keep his eyes open for the duration, though he still couldn’t move without expending a considerable effort and Dean found himself constantly snapping for Cas to stop trying to get up. He’d wanted to see Meg and Sam off, but Dean had insisted he’d stay in bed, something he had to go along with whether he wanted to or not when it became clear he couldn’t support himself even just to stand. Instead, Dean went, watching them from the remains of the post office they were holed up in, looking after them until they’d disappeared from view.

He went back to Cas, feeling a little strange for it all.

“Feels weird, huh?” he asked when he realised Cas was looking at him.

“Sam is a capable hunter, he wouldn’t have survived this long if he wasn’t, even if you took on the brunt of that role. Meg is perfectly capable of defending herself and from what I’ve heard Eileen has skills to rival our own.”

Dean couldn’t stop the soft chuckle that escaped him. “I guess I’m just fussing.”

“They’ll be fine, Dean,” Cas said, with such assurance that Dean believed him. More than that, he believed in his brother.

“What about you, will you be fine?” 

Cas had the decency to wince. “I will be,” he said wearily. He leaned back, as much as he could anyway, and looked towards the ceiling. “I confess it’s at times like these that I regret being separated from the Host.” 

“Does it...does it hurt?” Dean asked, hesitantly. 

Cas pondered his answer before he gave it. “Hurt is the wrong word. It is lonely first and foremost. I miss my brethren terribly even though we did not see eye to eye at the end, and the world is a much harsher place than heaven. But mostly it is inconvenient. When I had the power of heaven behind me I could have healed Sam with far less of...” he waved a hand over himself, “This. I don’t wish to be a burden.” 

“Hey,” Dean sighed, moving to the other side of Cas’ bed, “I don’t mind this. You’re a hero, Cas. Don’t forget it.” 

With a weak smile, Cas looked back at the ceiling. “There were, of course, other perks. I could fly without worrying about who was tracking me and what was waiting for me when I landed. I could have just shown you what the past was like, time is immaterial to angels...”

“Dude, what?! You can time travel?”

“ _ Could _ . I  _ could _ time travel, if that’s what you want to call it.” Cas looked over at Dean, a small smile dancing on his lips as he reached up and touched Dean’s cheek, almost reverently, “The things I could have shown you, Dean.” 

“I’m just glad you’re here,” Dean said, quietly. 

Cas’ hand was still on his face and he was looking up at Dean so earnestly, it seemed rude not to lean in. Their lips brushed, barely, a soft whisper of a thing but it was enough. Dean settled himself on the bed, letting Cas lie across his chest. He’d been attempting to get up, but Dean had hoped he could lure him into staying put. From the way Cas stretched out, reminding Dean of a cat trying to get comfortable, Dean knew he’d won. 

“You never did tell me about the day we met,” Cas murmured, “I was looking forward to that story.” 

“You don’t remember the day we met, Cas, I’m offended,” Dean chuckled. 

“I remember it exactly, my memory is infallible.” 

“Then you’ll remember how I couldn’t get anything done because I kept drooling over you.” 

Cas frowned, “I don’t recall any drool, though now you mention it I do remember an excess of staring.” They shared a chuckle with Cas’ hand still tracing faint patterns across his cheek. “You were also very kind to me, you’ve always been kind to me.”

“Don’t say that, not after some of the things I’ve said,” Dean sighed, but Cas moved a finger to his lips. 

“You have already apologised for those things and you don’t need to keep doing so. You used to bring me coffee, I liked that coffee very much.”

Dean didn’t have much choice but to look at him given that they were lying so close, but at that, he seemed to do so thoughtfully. “You don’t eat or drink, Cas.” 

“It’s true, I don’t require sustenance, but some things are nice to taste. The coffee tasted sweeter when you made it.”

“That’s because I had access to contraband sugar.” 

“I know. I knew about the coffee too, I just pretended I didn’t.” 

“I’m glad, if you had then we’d never have gotten this far.” 

They passed the day like that, lying close, sometimes their lips would find each other, sometimes they would just look. Cas’ eyes were so blue, Dean thought he could get lost in them. They reminded him of the sky. Not the sky that they looked up at, the sky of the Old People, the one he’d read about in books. The one they could reach with their machines, the one they could fly through. Cas’ eyes made Dean feel like he could soar. 

He drifted looking into those eyes. Somewhere between trading lazy kisses and trading stories, Dean fell asleep, only really aware of it when he woke up. One moment Cas was smiling at him, the next Cas was frowning and Dean recognised the grogginess that came hand in hand with an unwanted nap. 

“Hey,” he rasped, “Are you alright?”

Cas hesitated, but only for a moment. “While I was...resting...I believe I heard you all discussing several times the aptitude Eileen had for hunting.” 

“Yeah?”

“And Sam...I know he hasn’t had much occasion in recent years, but you trust Sam to be able to handle himself out there?”

“Of course, why?”

Cas gestured towards the window where Dean could see the sun had already crossed most of the sky. 

“Because they’ve taken a great deal longer than I would have expected.” 

* * *

For Dean, fear had always walked hand in hand with self-recrimination, especially when it came to Sam. It had started to get dark and there was still no sign of them, not any of them and despite Cas’ assurances, he muttered under his breath that he could have gone with them, he should have gone with them. 

“I doubt the worst has happened, Dean,” Cas said, which only caused Dean to glare at him. “They are three capable hunters and the worst they expected to run into was a vampire, maybe two. Even with those odds, they’d be at an advantage. That’s not considering Meg and Sam’s ability and their possession of my angel blade. If they were to run into anything particularly menacing then it surely would have reached us by now.” 

Dean glanced back from the window where he was standing. “I hate it when you do that,” he muttered. 

“What?”

“Get all...reasonable.”

Cas sighed and crossed the room on shaky legs, putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder though he couldn’t tell if it were for support more than the affection he’d clearly meant to convey. “They’ll be alright, Dean. This is concerning, yes, but I’m sure there’s a rational explanation.” 

“Alright,” Dean grumbled, “Now let’s get you back to bed before you fall over.” 

Under his breath, Cas muttered something about being perfectly fine, even as he stumbled forward into Dean’s arms. 

“If they’re not back by dawn...” Dean started, carrying Cas back to the bed. 

“Then we’ll go look for them.” 

Seeing as Dean had to help Cas to lie down before covering him with a blanket, even though he didn’t really need it. “Sure, Cas, you’ll be a great help.” 

“I’m an angel of the Lord, Dean. I’m a warrior of heaven,” he mumbled, struggling to keep his eyes open. 

“Sure you are, hot-wings, get some sleep.”

“I don’t need sleep,” Cas insisted, even as he drifted into...well...whatever state it was that aided his recovery. It had made Dean feel better though, something he wouldn’t ever have thought even possible. He still feared the worse, but its grip on him seemed fainter, lessened. Cas was right, of course. The three of them were perfectly capable of taking on a vampire, even a small nest of vampires. It was far more likely that they’d found somewhere to spend the night and would return in the morning, not wanting to brave the woods at night where the prospect of losing the path was a greater threat than the things that might hunt them. Still...he’d feel better when they were back. 

At least the nap, however unintentional, meant Dean could stay up through the night. Mostly he watched over Cas. It was a strangely reassuring thought that he wouldn’t have left Cas on his own. That if he’d had the chance to make the decision again, he would still have let Sam go with the others.

“They’ll be fine, Dean,” Cas said, quietly, able to hear Dean’s thinking, even though he barely had a hold on consciousness. “They’ll be fine.” Blindly, he reached for Dean’s hand and squeezed it tightly. 

“Go back to sleep, Cas,” Dean replied, softly. 

“I don’t sleep,” he murmured, sounding as though he were already asleep and he didn’t speak again for the rest of the night. He didn’t let go of Dean’s hand either. In fact, he didn’t stir, not until the first rays of light crept through the broken windows and Dean started getting ready. Dean regarded him with nothing short of open amusement as Cas tried to pull himself up. 

“Stay here, Cas,” Dean said, looking for the sturdier of his knives, one so large it might as well be a machete. 

Cas had at least managed to stand up, though he didn’t look like he’d be able to do much more than that. “I’ll be fine, Dean.” 

“Cas-”

“ _ Dean _ , I’m coming with you, you won’t have to worry about me, there are few things that can kill me.”

“We’re not going to argue about this, Cas, you-”

There was a sound near the door, interrupting their argument and when Dean spun around he saw Sam there, looking a little sheepish, but no worse for wear. 

“Sam!” Dean breathed, crossing the space between them in no time at all, pulling Sam into his arms. They broke apart almost instantly, Dean punching Sam’s arm harshly. “What the hell?!” 

But Sam didn’t look as though he cared, his eyes were alight with excitement. He opened his mouth to speak but Cas cut across him. 

“Where’s Meg?”

“She’s...look...we found something. Meg’s fine, she’s with Eileen but you guys...you gotta come see this. We found this...this thing. Meg and Eileen are still there, we lost track of time and we didn’t want to risk coming back after dark but...” he broke off, a little breathless, “Guys, you...you have to see this.” 

Dean’s hand was still on his brother’s shoulder. “What is it, Sam?”

“No you...you gotta see it. I can’t explain it.” 

“Alright, well, Cas needs to-” 

“Bring Cas. Trust me, we won’t need to go anywhere for a while.” 

Cas raised an eyebrow, “Have you found somewhere more suitable to camp?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, laughing despite himself, “Yeah, something like that. Come on.” 

Dean had several questions and from the look of it Cas had a dozen more, but Sam looked so eager to get underway they could be stowed for now. Right now it didn’t look like Sam would answer them even if they were asked. 

“Lemme give you a hand there, Cas,” Dean muttered, bracing Cas’ shoulders with an arm, supporting him as he took a few tentative steps. Sam didn’t wait, setting off at something that was almost a jog before he realised Dean and Cas weren’t following at the same speed. He slowed down, but every now and then he put on a burst of speed, as though he’d forgotten he needed to temper his pace. 

“What do you think he’s found?” Dean asked, as Sam led them out of Lebanon into the woodland that surrounded them, following a path known only to him it seemed. 

Cas would have shrugged if he had full range of motion, but leaning heavily against Dean all he could say was, “No idea. He’s obviously excited and it must be a matter of some urgency if Meg and Eileen let him go off alone.” 

“I’m gonna give him hell for that when he’s calmed down,” Dean grumbled. 

“I don’t disagree, but let’s wait until we’ve seen what they’ve found first.”

Cas caught Dean’s eye and they both chuckled. “We’re getting soft,” Dean muttered. 

Around his shoulders Cas’ grip tightened, “At least we’re getting soft together.” 

A pained groan escaped Dean and he was about to berate Cas for being so ridiculous when Sam shouted across to them, clearly not caring about the whole ‘keep quiet in The Fringes’ policy anyone who valued their lives tended to employ. “Guys, come on! It’s just over here!” 

_ “It” _ was something that might once have been described as a fortress. A building made of stone sturdy enough to have survived The Tribulation and everything that came after. The walls were still in one piece, distressed by age but otherwise intact. There were windows, long glass panes that remained in one piece, if such a thing were possible. But there were no doors. Even the windows were too high up to allow access. 

“This place is warded,” Cas said, quietly, looking up with undisguised awe at the surviving structure. “Not against angels,” he added, hastily, “They likely didn’t know how to do that, but...against demons certainly.” 

“Can we get in?” Dean asked, aware that Sam was already grinning. 

“Yeah, it’s this way.” He gestured for them to follow and led them away from the building, in the opposite direction to the one they would have expected. “Eileen found this place a while back, but she’d never found a way in,” Sam explained, “There’s a door but it’s locked.  _ Really _ locked, we couldn’t even get it to budge. I don’t think anything would have opened it and you already saw there’s no doors or anything to get in, so she just left it. Came out every now and then to see if she could find something new but she never did.”

“And now?” Cas prompted.

Sam positively beamed back at him. “Meg found a vent...well...more like she tripped and fell into a vent. It was underground and overgrown, the chances that we’d find it...” Sam trailed off, shaking his head as though it were pointless to entertain the idea. “Anyway, we found a way in, it collapsed behind us but we got in.” He was practically dancing on the spot, showing them to a concealed door that in looks alone showed itself to be impregnable. “We can’t open it from the outside, but as long as there’s someone inside we can get in.” He knocked the door in an established rhythm and Meg had obviously been waiting on the other side for him, his hand had barely touched it for the last time when it opened with a loud, metallic screech. 

“Clarence,” she smiled, ducking under Cas’ other arm to help support him. “Come see what we found.”

Dean paused on the threshold, “What is this, Sam?” he asked, already becoming infected by their excitement. 

“Dean...I...I really think this could be our new home.” 


	14. Chapter 14

In the wilder of his wildest dreams, Dean might have imagined that one day he and Sam would find a kind of safety. That safety had always been a vague, nebulous concept and it had certainly never been rooted in a particular location. It was little more than a foolish fantasy that maybe, somehow, somewhere, they would settle in a place where the people didn’t bother them and they were left alone. Even his dreams knew it was idiotic to assume they might one day be totally safe, but maybe one day they might settle. One day their go-bags might lie in a cupboard gathering dust, never needing to be used.

Even in those, admittedly, unlikely scenarios, Dean would never have thought to imagine something like this, what Meg had introduced to them as, ‘The Bunker.’

The first order of business was to get Cas somewhere he could rest but Sam, Meg and Eileen had apparently already picked out rooms, including one where he could lie down. It only took them a few minutes for Dean to get Cas settled, but even in those brief moments, the bunker had almost overwhelmed him. He made sure to take some extra time ostensibly to make sure Cas was comfortable. Cas, of course, had seen right through Dean and his need to get his head straight before Sam gave him the tour. He couldn’t be seen to be out of his depth after all, not in front of his little brother at any rate.

“Will you be alright?” he asked Cas, pausing before he went back out to Sam.

Cas didn’t try to hold back his laugh. It was a wonderful sound, even when it was as weak as it was at that moment. He gestured to the room around them, an actual room, with  _ furniture _ . And not just remade, reformed or reclaimed from the shards and pieces of the old world that remained. The dresser was made from a kind of wood Dean had never even seen before, let alone seen carved into something that could hold clothes instead of requiring them to be draped over the back of a chair or folded in a corner somewhere. There were clothes too, suits, shirts and slacks Dean had glimpsed in faded magazines and not one of them bore an oversized stitched cross to demonstrate devotion to the Norm. Cas was more comfortable than he’d likely ever been in his very long life, lying on a bed that hadn’t been touched for hundreds of years. He was going to be just fine.

Still, Dean hesitated in the doorway, looking back at Cas fondly. “Go on,” Cas said, waving him away, his hand falling back against the bed tiredly, “I’ll be here.”

“Alright, I’ll be back soon,” Dean breathed, feeling domestic in a way he’d never had cause to before.

Sam was waiting just outside the door, his arms folded across his chest as though he was having to physically contain his excitement. “You ready?” he asked.

Dean nodded. “Alright, let’s see what you found.”

* * *

Afterwards, after Sam, Meg and Eileen in various combinations had taken Dean around the bunker, Dean returned to Cas’ room. He could have taken up one of the many, many empty rooms available to them, they were hardly short on space, but he wanted to be near Cas. Why he couldn’t say, or at least, he wasn’t prepared to admit. At any rate, Cas wasn’t surprised to see him. Nor did he bat an eyelid when Dean kicked off his shoes and lay down on the bed next to him, staring up at the ceiling.

“Dean? Are you alright?” Cas asked, softly, seeing as they were right beside each other.

Dean blinked a few times, focusing his eyes on an unseen spot above him, staring at nothing. Cas didn’t push him, waiting patiently for him to recover from whatever it was he had seen, but after Dean had been lying there for a good ten minutes without moving, Cas admittedly started to worry.

“Dean?”

“Cas,” Dean sighed, rolling onto his side so he could look at the man beside him. Once upon a time, he would have noticed how close they were lying together, but not anymore. “Cas it’s...it’s  _ amazing _ ,” he breathed, unable to stop the awestruck smile from spreading across his face.

Cas beamed back, shuffling down in the bed so he was lying on his side, looking right into Dean’s face. “Tell me.”

So he did.

He talked about the space they had, the rooms that were available to them, all of them furnished and comfortable in ways that Dean couldn’t have conceived of. There was an infirmary, stocked with medical supplies and it didn’t matter that they didn’t know how to use them because there were plenty of medical texts to hand. There was a library filled with books that were all intact, more so, some of them looked as if they had never been opened, heavily bound which had protected them from the ravages of time, as had the bunker as a whole which had preserved everything within it as though no time had passed at all. There was a kitchen with a pantry stocked full of food and granted, there were empty shelves where the produce that had once sat there had long since disintegrated but there were tinned meats, canned vegetables and several packages of those twinkie things Dean had eaten in the R.V. There was enough food to have kept an army alive for many, many years, almost as though they had known the end was coming and had prepared accordingly.

Whatever had killed the once residents of this place (Sam had discovered their skeletons in the morgue and tucked in one of the beds) it had not been starvation.

There was an entire room full of spell ingredients that they wouldn’t ever need to use, but the novelty was enough for Dean.  _ A room they wouldn’t use _ . Actually, there were several rooms that would probably never see use, Dean said excitedly, while Cas just lay there, smiling at him, though he hung off every word that was spoken.

By the time Dean got onto the garage his face was starting to hurt from his grin.

“The cars, Cas, they’re beautiful and there’s fuel in there, I might even be able to figure out how they work. Imagine, we could go for a drive! And then there’s the bathroom but Eileen said she’d ran the hot water for half an hour and it never got cold. The longest I’ve ever seen is six minutes hot! There’s a dungeon too-”

“A dungeon?” Cas arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah, all warded with devil traps and did I mention the books? There are so many of them it’ll take us a lifetime to read them, some of them are in languages that haven’t existed for years! And the cars, Cas! Actual, working cars-”

Cas kissed him then. There was no warning, he just leaned in and claimed his lips while he was mid-sentence, though he pulled away grinning. “You’re so beautiful when you’re happy.”

Dean flushed bright red, still stammering something about the cars.

“Forgive me,” Cas muttered but there was a hint of mischief in his voice. “You’re beautiful all the time, but particularly so when you’re excited.” He raised a hand to cup Dean’s cheek, “Sorry, you were saying?”

Dean relaxed into the touch, “I think...I think this is it, Cas. I think we can stay here, we can make a home here. We’ll be safe.” He raised his own hand to touch Cas’ face,

The sigh of relief that Cas breathed was warm against Dean’s skin. “Sam and Meg will finally be able to breathe easy. And you, Dean,” he added, “We are all safe because of you, you deserve this.”

Dean allowed his fingertips to trail across Cas’ cheeks, over the shell of his ear, through his hair, as he allowed himself to appreciate a thought he’d not had before. Or at least, not had the opportunity to consider.

“Meg told me you were tortured,” he said, the words tumbling out even though he hadn’t entirely planned them. He had a point, though this may not have been the best way to have gone about it. Still, Cas seemed to catch onto that and smirked as Dean shook his head, his fingers curling into the nape of Cas’ neck as though he feared that might have been one offence too far. “No-wait-what I mean is...” He took a breath, trying to order his thoughts. “You’ve had to hide who you are for so long, but you don’t have to anymore. This place will be safe for you too,” he bit his lip, nervously, “safe for  _ us _ , maybe?”

Cas smiled so brightly it seemed to light the room, even though the electric lights were doing just fine in that regard. He didn’t say anything in response, instead, he just pulled Dean closer, kissing him over and over. At first, Dean realised that they were free to do this without anyone to stop them, without anyone to scream abomination and drag them out for penance, but soon enough, against the relentless press of Cas’ lips, he stopped thinking altogether.

Eventually, a long time after they had drawn apart when Cas had been lulled to almost-sleep on Dean’s chest by the steady rhythm of his breathing, Dean had the thought that they were all safe. All of them. Including him. The thought made him smile and he gently tried to slip out from under the angel, but Cas’ grip tightened around his waist, even in sleep.

“Stay,” he mumbled, without opening his eyes.

Dean stopped moving except to wrap his own arms around Cas, leaving a whisper of a kiss to the crown of his head.

“Cas, I don’t think you ever have to worry about me going anywhere.”

Cas gave a grunt of approval and in no time at all, was lost to the world and dreaming again.


	15. Epilogue

“This is a bad idea, Dean,” Sam muttered, following Dean through the bunker’s maze of hallways.

“You always say that.”

“That’s because it’s always a bad idea.”

Dean paused to reassure his brother, as he had done every single time Sam had voiced his concerns. They weren’t unfounded, but Dean knew what he was doing, and if Dean didn’t then Cas certainly did. He stopped walking and put his hands on Sam’s shoulders, looking into his face.

“I know it ain’t smart, but this isn’t our first time, it’s going to be fine. I’ve already gone ahead and checked the route, we’ll be warded anyway and it’s less than a mile away. We’ll be back by dinner time.”

Sam folded his arms, annoyed but that was probably because Dean had actually placated him. “Yeah, well, you better,” he muttered, “It’s your turn to cook.”

Dean drew his hands back, trying not to be too obnoxious in his victory. “I promise I’ll do extra veggies just for you and no twinkies.”

The moment Sam smiled, Dean knew the argument was over. He’d known he’d win the moment Sam had opened his mouth, he always did, but he’d never trivialise Sam’s worries by dismissing them. If the positions were reversed Dean wouldn’t have let Sam go either.

Sam sighed and with a roll of his eyes asked, “Alright, so which one are you taking this time?”

Dean couldn’t help but grin, “C’mon, lemme show you!”

Grabbing Sam’s arm, Dean all but dragged him into the bunker’s garage where his vehicle of choice awaited. Over the past year, Dean had gotten to know every car and motorbike contained in that garage and though all of them looked good, not many of them would actually run. Of those that did, Sam had outright vetoed Dean ever going out on the bike, though Dean had agreed with no argument. The thing was loud enough to bring every monster in the Fringes upon them. The cars though, they were another matter.

He hadn’t gotten around to checking all of them out, but he’d taken a handful of them out for a spin. Nothing too strenuous, just around the broken roads that surrounded the bunker, mostly trying to get to grips with how to drive them. There were several manuals to be found among the very many shelves in the bunker and between Dean, Jesse and Cesar they had all managed to figure out the basics, though all of them had benefited from the practical experience of actually taking them out into the world. They’d even learned some basic repairs to varying degrees of success.

Dean stepped over to a red car that had its roof missing. Or at least that’s what they had all assumed when they had come across it. They had since learned it had been intended to look like that. A convertible; its roof folded out from its trunk and it was Dean’s personal favourite to drive. She positively shone even in the artificial light of the garage, her name ‘ _Chevrolet_ ’ gleaming in silver detail. She reminded Dean of the car they’d found at the drive-in, the one where Cas had kissed him for the first time. He tapped her affectionately, “Gonna take this little lady out,” he said, his voice only a little weighted with _something_.

Sam looked her over but the harder Dean grinned the more suspicious he seemed. Granted, she was a very pretty car with her vibrant red against stark white details and accents, but that meant very little in this day and age. Her roof was down which at least meant they could make a quick getaway if they needed to abandon the car for any reason. Maybe that’s why Dean preferred her to the others.

Dean caught his eye as Sam gestured to the seats but before he could say anything, Dean grinned, “Roomy, isn’t she?”

“Uch, gross Dean, real gross,” Sam groaned, catching onto what he was implying, “I seriously don’t need to know any more than I already do about your sex life.”

Snorting, Dean folded his arms, “Oh please, you don’t know shit about my sex life.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed dangerously, “Dean. Your better half shorts out half the power grid every time he...he...” he waved his hand as though the gesture alone could finish the thought that he clearly didn’t want to voice.

But Dean’s smile had only turned dreamy, “Yeah...it’s pretty hot, Sammy, I gotta tell you.”

Sam all but buried his face in his hands, “I hate you.”

Behind them, the door to the garage opened again and Cas stepped in, though his smile faded when he saw Sam’s expression. “Sam? Are you alright?”

“Your boyfriend is being gross,” Sam muttered.

Cas didn’t look in the least bit surprised. “I’d remind you he was your brother before he was my boyfriend.”

“No, when he’s being gross, he’s your boyfriend.”

“You ready to go, angel?” Dean asked, deliberately using the endearment he only ever seemed to use when he wanted to tease Sam. Normally, Cas would stay out of such things, but Dean’s smile was infectious, he couldn’t help but step over to him, kissing him almost chastely, grinning nonetheless.

“Always,” he said, softly.

“I take it back, you’re both gross,” Sam groaned. He’d almost turned away when he remembered to point at Dean, “and remember, you’re cooking. I’m not bailing you out tonight.”

“We’ll be back!” Dean assured him and he might have launched into a whole new avenue of teasing seeing as the only reason Sam would rule himself out of helping was if he already had plans. Plans that probably involved Eileen. But, he had his own date to get to and he would never run out of opportunities to hassle his brother.

* * *

The area surrounding the bunker wasn’t particularly inspiring in terms of views, but it wasn’t as though Dean would risk himself or Cas going further out just so they could potentially look at something else. The two of them usually only ended up looking at each other anyway. Hell, if the destination was the point of the journey, they would have probably been better off walking. As it was, they were in the car for hardly any time at all, but the novelty of driving, even over such a short distance, even as badly as Dean did so, had yet to wear off.

There was a bridge not far from the bunker. It had stretched across a valley once upon a time, though it had long since collapsed before it reached the other side. Dean would never have risked taking the car onto it at all, but it was a nice spot to park nonetheless. It was open enough that if anything tried to approach them then they would see them in plenty of time to do something about it, plus they could look down into the valley. Cas liked heights.

“You look good when you drive,” Cas said when they’d parked, his voice sounding louder now that the low rumble of the engine had cut off. “It suits you.”

Dean snorted, fully aware that his driving was shaky at best, “Sure, Cas. Whatever you say.”

In response, Cas punched him lightly on the arm, “Dean, you learned how to drive through trial and error and from directions in books that were written over a hundred years ago. The fact that you can drive at all is impressive, take the compliment.”

Dean gave him a mock salute, “Yes, sir.”

It was the wrong thing to say, or perhaps it was the very right thing to say as Cas closed what little distance existed between them, slipping into Dean’s lap, straddling his thighs. Dean’s hands went to Cas’ hips automatically, as he shifted to make them more comfortable. Goddamn, he loved how roomy the car was.

“I’ve told you before if you would like to call me ‘sir’ I would be alright with that.”

Dean tipped his head back over the seat with a groan. Nevermind the monsters or whatever the hell else was stalking the Fringes, it was Cas who was going to kill him.

“Someone’s keen,” Dean smirked, inwardly congratulating himself on how well he had maintained his composure so far.

Cas pressed their foreheads together, his soft smile totally at odds with the way his thighs rested against Dean’s legs. “I’ve missed you,” he sighed, “I haven’t seen you since this morning.”

Dean couldn’t help but grin. Castiel, Angel of the Lord, Warrior of Heaven, Defier of the Host was nuzzling their cheeks together just because they’d been slightly busier than usual since they’d started their day. It should not have been as adorable as it was.

“I love you,” Dean breathed, cupping Cas’ face and kissing him deeply.

It was short-lived though, Cas had barely allowed his lips to part before the joy swelling in Dean’s chest became too much and he had to draw back to allow his laugh to escape. Cas rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help but smile back. This was, after all, a common occurrence. The idea that they could be together was ludicrous enough, the idea that they could be together, like this, making out while their community knew exactly what they were doing was impossible. It often made them laugh. It was so much, it had to go somewhere.

“I love you too,” Cas whispered and Dean’s breath caught in his chest. It wasn’t the first time Cas had said it, but it never failed to take Dean’s breath away. That anyone could love him was a constant surprise, that a being formed from the colour of starlight and the promises of galaxies could do so had been a lot for him to get his head around. Thankfully, Cas was patient and endlessly willing to prove his feelings.

Dean never had found his own room. The room in which he had first carried Cas to recover when the bunker had opened to them became their room even though neither of them decided it should be so. Dean simply fell asleep in Cas’ arms and continued to do so every night of their lives together. Cas didn’t need to sleep so would have been forgiven for slipping out to read one of the bunker’s many arcane texts or exploring their labyrinthine home which continued to yield wonders and secrets even a year later. But, he never did, insisting that watching over Dean was far more fulfilling than anything else he had ever engaged in. Well, almost anything…

“We can’t stay long,” Dean murmured, aware that they had passed more than a few moments just sitting against each other, looking into the other’s eyes, exchanging casual touches, chaste presses of lips. “Sam’s right, I’m on kitchen duty tonight.”

Cas huffed, leaning in to nibble at Dean’s ear lobe. “I know, it’s why I’m...how did you put it? Keen.” He ground his hips down as he trailed his lips across Dean’s neck, a shoulder, biting through the cloth of his shirt.

Dean, however, was reduced to a giggling mess, trying and failing to stop his laughs from spilling out. It didn’t work of course, how could it? Cas had existed before time, he had once told Dean of a time he’d watched a single speck of dust in space for millennia, watching it grow until one day it exploded, birthing a hundred stars. Apparently he had patience enough to watch the universe but not to get into Dean’s pants. He would never not find the thought ridiculous.

Not that he could laugh about it for long, Cas teeth moved to his neck about the same time that he rocked his hips against Dean and the sound that escaped him next was very much not a laugh.

The growl that escaped Cas was practically feral, a reminder that he wasn’t human as he dove in and claimed Dean’s lips fiercely, a world away from the adorable angel who had sulked when he’d been needed elsewhere that morning.

“Cas,” Dean breathed, “We can’t- We don’t have-”

“We’ll be quick,” Cas assured him with a growl and damn if Dean didn’t believe him. It was hard not to with the way he expertly slotted their hips together, his hand reaching between them to fumble with their pants. Or at least, it should have been fumbling, but Cas always seemed to be in control, his hand steady as a rock. At the first breath of cool air against his rapidly hardening cock, Dean hissed, surging up to reclaim Cas’ lips which had never belonged anywhere but against his own. Cas loosed himself with a sigh, taking them both in hand and sliding them against each other, swallowing down the glorious sounds that Dean made under him.

Cas had been right. They were quick. It was hard not to be when the angel felt so good around him, canting their hips together, stroking them firmly, murmuring holy words in long-forgotten languages that sounded so sinful when his voice dropped as low as it did. Still, Dean held off. He forced himself to hold off until the air around them seemed to crackle, the car rocking from more than just their increasingly ragged movements. Cas threw his head back and Dean wanted to claim his neck with his lips more than he wanted to breathe, but he wouldn’t move, determined to watch. Cas’ eyes snapped open, unseeing, glowing brighter than the sun as he cried out. Dean didn’t so much feel Cas’ release as he saw it, when the shadow of his wings, something Dean had only ever seen in these moments, unfurled around them as something that could only be described as ‘light’, even though it had no form, consumed them and burst outwards, sending a tremor for miles around.

At some point during the proceedings, Dean came himself, panting Cas’ name, though the angel was far away and unable to hear him. They went limp together, boneless, pressing into each other as though they had allowed even the hint of space between them before now. Cas’ head fell forward onto Dean’s shoulder and he curled his arms around him, his breathing heavy and ragged but it would be a few moments before he would have the wherewithal to calm himself.

Dean always regained his senses first, but then he didn’t tend to climax with the power of an exploding sun. He would never tire of those moments, like he would never tire of the way Cas came back to him, slowly, in increments, allowing himself to be lured back to awareness by the light kisses Dean pressed against his shoulder, his soothing whispers.

“I love you,” Cas sighed, burying his face in the crook of Dean’s neck.

Dean dropped a gentle kiss to his crown, taking a moment to breathe in the glorious scent that seemed to cling to Cas; the first flower’s dew, a breath after a rainstorm and something that never failed to remind Dean of the night sky. “I love you too and not just because you can do _that_ to me.”

Cas drew back so that he could look into Dean’s eyes, his own eyes a normal shade of blue again, if such brightness could ever be called normal, but still hazy. “That you let me do _that_ to you...that you let me share in your love in such a way is more than I ever dreamed possible.”

He had the decency to look away when Dean flushed. Angelic orgasms he could get used to, but the idea that Cas, _Cas_ , would think of him in such a way still left him somewhere between awestruck and baffled. Not that he was complaining. Besides, Cas knew of his reservations and had promised to spend the rest of their lives proving to Dean with his body and what soul he could claim, what his lips had already promised.

Dean wasn’t complaining about that either.

* * *

The drive back was quiet, as they would expect. The garage was silent once Dean parked the car and neither of them said a word as they flung an arm around the other, heading slowly for the kitchen so Dean could make a start on dinner.

The noise that greeted them was The Tribulation come again.

It was Sam ignoring Eileen to immediately berate his brother for his poor timekeeping and then regretting he had even opened his mouth when he saw the unmistakable closeness of the two that could only come from a shared afterglow. It was Claire and Kaia launching into lewd jokes and innuendos kids shouldn’t have even known of let alone spoken. Dean had picked them up during a sweep of the Fringes. They were in love and could have passed it off as anything, but Claire had a fiery temper and a mouth to match. The fact that they’d even survived as long as they had with her attitude had earned them a place in the bunker over anything else.

It was Garth calling for calm, having already started preparing what Dean had intended to cook to save him time when he eventually showed up. It was Jesse and Cesar shouting over at him to stop bailing Dean out. He was a big boy and could face the consequences of his actions, even though neither of them could cook for shit and made themselves useful in other ways. It was a heavily pregnant Bess, cuffing the two of them good-naturedly telling them to leave her husband alone.

It was Meg smirking at Cas, forever amused at the turn of events but ridiculously proud that Cas had “finally learned to get his rocks off.”

It was Cas managing to press every inch of himself against Dean as he passed by him, offering to drain the vegetables while whispering into his ear that he was sorry he’d made them late.

Dean looked around the room, his head already aching from the overlapping voices and raucous taunts.

He smiled.

It was home.


End file.
